Tracking in Word 2004

[Ed Kearns]

Is there a good tutorial out there for this? Word Help is not very helpful.

Ed

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Ed;

Word 2004 Help on the Track Changes feature is pretty extensive, so assuming
you have read it all it sounds like you are experiencing one or more
problems. It is a feature which can cause more harm than good if used
improperly, so if you can be specific about what you find to be perplexing
I'm sure someone can address it for you. Much has been written, so you could
spend hours sifting through it all without finding the answer you need.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

For what? Your question is too broad!

What are you trying to do?

Is there a good tutorial out there for this? Word Help is not very helpful.

Ed

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Ed Kearns]

For what? Your question is too broad!

What are you trying to do?




This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

A friend asked me to co-edit a doc, using tracking, with which I was
unfamiliar. I found at times that I would enter a comment, and it didn't
show up, or the color was wrong, or something. I just hoped there was a
tutorial that said do the following steps. The friend is using a pc, which
may have complicated things.

Ed

 

[Ed Kearns]

A friend asked me to co-edit a doc, using tracking, with which I was
unfamiliar. I found at times that I would enter a comment, and it didn't
show up, or the color was wrong, or something. I just hoped there was a
tutorial that said do the following steps. The friend is using a pc, which
may have complicated things.

Ed

I've been playing with tracking, using the info in Word Help, and I can
insert comments, see the balloon, but when I just insert an addition, it
just highlights it in red (the color it used for me), and no balloon.
(However it does show in the Reviewing Pane.) Is that the only way to show
who typed it? Can I get it to show in a balloon?

Ed

 

[John McGhie]

Ah, OK, that's better...

It's risky to attempt to co-edit with change tracking if one of you is on a
PC and the other on a Mac. There's a high chance of corrupting the
document.

It is better for each of you to work on your own copy, without tracking any
changes, and then to use the Compare and Merge function to merge the two
sets of changes into the original document.

That will show you who made each change, and has a very low chance of
corrupting the document.

You should both be working in the same format: for preference, work in the
XML format, it stands a lot more abuse.

There's an online course that covers the basics: look up the Word 2008 Help
for "Collaborate effectively with Track Changes" (and make sure you allow
the Help System to go online ‹ this is one of many items that are not
installed on the local computer).

Compare documents is in the topic "Compare two versions of a document". What
it doesn't tell you is to start with the original, then merge both his and
your changes into the same document: you will get two sets of changes.

Be careful of your "Privacy" settings: if you have "Remove personally
identifiable information" set, you remove the ability to track WHO made each
change. If you also disable "Store random number" (which appears only on
the PC...) you disable Word's ability to track changes within changes.

For balloons to show up, you need to have them turned on, and you need to
set the options in preferences according to what you want to see in them.
Then in the Reviewing toolbar, you need to adjust the viewing preferences to
your taste.

Hope this helps

A friend asked me to co-edit a doc, using tracking, with which I was
unfamiliar. I found at times that I would enter a comment, and it didn't
show up, or the color was wrong, or something. I just hoped there was a
tutorial that said do the following steps. The friend is using a pc, which
may have complicated things.

Ed

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Ed Kearns]

It's risky to attempt to co-edit with change tracking if one of you is on a
PC and the other on a Mac. There's a high chance of corrupting the
document.

It is better for each of you to work on your own copy, without tracking any
changes, and then to use the Compare and Merge function to merge the two
sets of changes into the original document.

That will show you who made each change, and has a very low chance of
corrupting the document.

You should both be working in the same format: for preference, work in the
XML format, it stands a lot more abuse.

There's an online course that covers the basics: look up the Word 2008 Help
for "Collaborate effectively with Track Changes" (and make sure you allow
the Help System to go online ‹ this is one of many items that are not
installed on the local computer).

Compare documents is in the topic "Compare two versions of a document". What
it doesn't tell you is to start with the original, then merge both his and
your changes into the same document: you will get two sets of changes.

Be careful of your "Privacy" settings: if you have "Remove personally
identifiable information" set, you remove the ability to track WHO made each
change. If you also disable "Store random number" (which appears only on
the PC...) you disable Word's ability to track changes within changes.

For balloons to show up, you need to have them turned on, and you need to
set the options in preferences according to what you want to see in them.
Then in the Reviewing toolbar, you need to adjust the viewing preferences to
your taste.

Thanks for the help. A couple of problems though. I have Word 2004, can't
find "Collaborate effectively with Track Changes," and as to XML, is that
available in Word? And wouldn't that be departing from Word and its tracking
function?

Ed

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ed:

So now you can see why we stress the need to advise which version you're
using when you post your question.

The current (new) Word format is XML ‹ anything that arrives with a .docx
extension is in XML.

The old binary (Word 2004 and prior) .doc format is not as capable with
Tracked Changes.

You can get the free Open Office XML Format converters from the Microsoft
Mac website to enable Word 2004 to work in XML.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx?pid=Mactopia_AddTools&fid=450BC2
12-86E9-4E12-9847-B1A8932953BE#viewer

If you Google for " Collaborate effectively with Track Changes" you will
find it (URL varies by country).

Cheers

Thanks for the help. A couple of problems though. I have Word 2004, can't
find "Collaborate effectively with Track Changes," and as to XML, is that
available in Word? And wouldn't that be departing from Word and its tracking
function?

Ed

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[joek]

Unlike Mr. McGhie, my experience in doing editing professionally using
track changes has been very positive and without any issues of
document corruption. I have been editing and reviewing Word documents
since about 2005. I know the people who have written these documents
have always been on PCs using a version of Office prior to 2007 (I
think it's most often been Office 2003 but I believe in at least one
case it was Office XP). In fact, we have all steadfastly avoided
Office 2007 (and similarly 2008 Office for the Mac) since not all have
converted to 2007. XML may be less prone to corruption, but not all
have the XML product or want to deal with converters, at least not
currently.

The Word documents I was dealing included tables and graphics along
with much text, of course.

While I share your concerns about learning to use Tools/Track changes
effectively and efficiently, I have read little and just dove in by
turning it on and doing my reviewing.

Please understand that this is my opinion and for sure always, always,
always make backups of original documents as well as reviewed
documents.

Incidentally Mc. McGhie's ideas about comparing and merging are good
ones which I'm also going to investigate myself.

Thanks

 

[John McGhie]

Thanks Joe:

I am delighted to hear that you have not had problems with Tracked Changes.
That's rare, and is likely to be due to the dare and skill with which your
users both create and edit their documents

My experience goes back to 1989, and covers both PC and Mac flavours of
Word: the binary formats are quite fragile and document corruption is
endemic, particularly if users are also tracking formatting changes.

Office 2007 has a repulsive user interface, but underneath, it's quite a
good product ‹ a few bugs they're slowly getting rid of, but a more solid
product than any that came before it

Word is like wine, and "2008" was NOT a good year

Cheers

Unlike Mr. McGhie, my experience in doing editing professionally using
track changes has been very positive and without any issues of
document corruption. I have been editing and reviewing Word documents
since about 2005. I know the people who have written these documents
have always been on PCs using a version of Office prior to 2007 (I
think it's most often been Office 2003 but I believe in at least one
case it was Office XP). In fact, we have all steadfastly avoided
Office 2007 (and similarly 2008 Office for the Mac) since not all have
converted to 2007. XML may be less prone to corruption, but not all
have the XML product or want to deal with converters, at least not
currently.

The Word documents I was dealing included tables and graphics along
with much text, of course.

While I share your concerns about learning to use Tools/Track changes
effectively and efficiently, I have read little and just dove in by
turning it on and doing my reviewing.

Please understand that this is my opinion and for sure always, always,
always make backups of original documents as well as reviewed
documents.

Incidentally Mc. McGhie's ideas about comparing and merging are good
ones which I'm also going to investigate myself.

Thanks

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]