Tracking Changes

[Daryl]

Hi,

I work for a document processing company. I have the need
to track changes to show changes to my clients.

Can Word 2003 show marked up changes from different proof
levels. E.g. if on Monday I produce a document called
Proof one, on Tuesday I showed changes to Proof 1 and
called it Proof 2; and on Wednesday i did changes to Proof
2 and called it Proof 3. Would it be possible to track ALL
changes from the initial Proof 1 all the way to Proof 3?

The documents I produce go through many proof
stages/revisions, so I may need to show my clients all
changes from Proof 3 to Proof 8, and the Clean document
without underlining or strikethroughs as well.

Can Word 2003 keep historic changes hidden and show them
as/when required?

Please somebody help!

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Daryl

The short answer is: No, Word has no functionality of this kind.

The long answer is: at Tools > Options > User Information, create a new
"person" called, for example, Proof1, and your changes will be marked as
having been made by Mr Proof1. Next day, create a new "person" called
Proof2, and so on.

If you do this, then in Word 2003 you can choose to view the changes by
author. On the Reviewing toolbar, click Show > Reviewers to determine whose
changes to display. In this way, you can choose to display only Friday's
changes, for example.

There's some info about track changes at
How does Track Changes in Microsoft Word work?
http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/trackchanges/HowTrackChangesWorks.html

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Daryl]

Shauna,

Thanks very much. Your information has been most useful.
Do you have any other suggestions as to how I can get
around this issue in a more seamless way?

I am looking at a product called DeltaView, made by a
company called Workshare. It is a comparison tool that
allows a document to be compared against its previous
proof level, thus producing a redline (3rd) document that
highlights changes. Have you heard of DeltaView? I would
appreciate your thoughts.

Kind regards,

Daryl

 

[Robert M. Franz]

Hi Daryl

I work for a document processing company. I have the need
to track changes to show changes to my clients.

Can Word 2003 show marked up changes from different proof
levels. E.g. if on Monday I produce a document called
Proof one, on Tuesday I showed changes to Proof 1 and
called it Proof 2; and on Wednesday i did changes to Proof
2 and called it Proof 3. Would it be possible to track ALL
changes from the initial Proof 1 all the way to Proof 3?

The documents I produce go through many proof
stages/revisions, so I may need to show my clients all
changes from Proof 3 to Proof 8, and the Clean document
without underlining or strikethroughs as well.

Can Word 2003 keep historic changes hidden and show them
as/when required?

Another possibility: Just use your "backup"-versions for this. You get
the document, then you save it as a new file (xyStage00.doc). Activate
Track/Changes and do all the changes for stage 1. Save again as a new
file (xyStage01.doc). Now accept all changes and save as a new file
(xyStage02.doc). etc.

Whether you use an external tool for this or not, shouldn't matter (as
long as you *don't* use Word's own "version" mechanism, which tends to
me too big a burden for longer documents).

2cents
..bob

 

[Jay]

Do you have any other suggestions as to how I can get

around this issue in a more seamless way?

One way is to save each proof in a separate file.

Then, whenever you want the changes between any two of them, use
Tools >> Track Changes >> Compare documents
(That's the command for Word 97; Word 03 might differ.)

This might not provide everything you need, but it's better than nothing.

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Daryl

I don't know DeltaView, but I suspect that it is trying to do something
different from track changes.

Word itself has two functionalities that are kind of relevant to what you're
talking about.

Track changes tracks the changes that you make in a document. So, you have a
document, and you type some new text into it, or you delete some text, and
Word marks those changes. This functionality works reasonably well.

In Word, Tools > Compare and Merge Documents compares two documents. So, you
have a document. You think it might be quite similar to another document you
have. So you use Tools > Compare and Merge Documents to compare the two
documents. Word then marks the differences between the two documents by
using its own Track Changes functionality to mark the differences.

Unfortunately, the Compare functionality doesn't work very well in Word. It
often marks gross differences (eg it marks one whole paragraph as different)
when there was actually only a fine difference (eg one word was different).
Therefore, there are any number of third-party tools available that do a
more refined job of the comparison. And my guess is that DeltaView is one of
those.

So your choices depend on whether you want to track *changes to a document*
or see *differences between documents*.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word