Tips for Navigating Track Changes in Your Manuscript (Part Two)

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​This is part two in Tips for Navigating Track Changes in Your Manuscript. If you missed part one, you can find it here. We covered the types of edits you will find in your manuscript and the benefits of blind edits.

In this post, we discuss the basic buttons you need to use to navigate your edited document and what they do. Having a basic understanding of how each button benefits you will allow us to tackle tips for efficiency in post three.

Without further ado, let’s jump in.

What This Post Is Not
First, there are tons of step-by-step guides out there about how to use Tracked Changes. Sue Littleford’s article here is a great place to start.

I also partner with a fellow editor to teach a more comprehensive Word course through The PEN Institute (one for Windows users and the other specific to Mac users). You can find that course offered in a Group Course format, One-on-One format, or you can purchase the Digital Curriculum if you work well with self-instruction. Check out the course for a more detailed, step-by-step guide to using Word, including Track Changes. It is written for editors but would be highly beneficial for authors as well.

Having said that, this post isn’t going to take you through the step-by-step process of using Track Changes. Rather, we will briefly look at the basics of navigating Track Changes before moving into efficiency in our final post next week.

Using the Editing Options Efficiently
Navigating tracked changes primarily takes place on the Review tab of your document. One important thing to note, as features are updated in Word, they do occasionally move buttons around, so if you find that these explanations don’t match your document exactly, you should still be able to find the right buttons in the general area described.

Track Changes Button
Once you have the Review tab open, you will see a big button labeled Track Changes. This will toggle the feature on and off, meaning any additional revisions will either continue to be tracked or no longer be tracked in the document.

All Markup/Simple Markup/No Markup/Original
To the right of the Track Changes button, you will see the option for All Markup. If you choose the drop-down arrow, you will see further options for Simple Markup, No Markup, or Original.

The All-Markup option allows you to see the document with all the suggested revisions marked.

Simple Markup and No Markup will show you the revisions as though they were already accepted. Simple Markup indicates where the changes are within the manuscript using a red line in the margin.

And of course, Original shows the document in its original form.

Simple Markup or No Markup can be helpful if you want to read through a section of edited text without all the red markups irritating your eyes. From there, you can decide if you like the suggestions your editor made or if you want to reject their proposed changes.

This is a feature I find tremendously helpful when I am accepting and rejecting edits and get confused by the markups on the page.

So, if you are finding the multi-colored text confusing, try Simple Markup or No Markup instead. Read through the revisions, determine if you like the suggestions provided, then accept or reject accordingly.

Accept and Reject Buttons
Speaking of Accept and Reject, you will find those buttons located to the right of the All Markup drop-down box. Again, you have drop-down options that include Accept All Changes, Accept and Move to Next, and Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking. I would not recommend accepting all changes without reviewing the document thoroughly, but I have recommended to clients with heavy edits that they read the document in Simple Markup.  They can then reject any changes they don’t like and use Accept All on the remaining changes to avoid making each change one by one.

Next to the Accept button, you will see a paper with a red X. This is the button to reject changes and offers the same options as the Accept drop-down menu.

Below the Reject button, you will see two arrows, which allow you to jump forward or backward from one change to another. I use this feature regularly when I am reviewing edits in a manuscript.

If the book has minimal tracked edits, this may help you jump through all the proposed edits fairly efficiently. Again, you can reject any changes you don’t agree with and then use Accept All to reconcile any remaining changes.

Comments Drop-Down Menu
The last crucial button you need to know about will change the view for Word’s comment feature. You will find this button located to the left of the Track Changes button. Again, Comments has a drop-down option giving you choices for Contextual or List.

I prefer the list view as it lets me read through the comments quickly and gain a big-picture understanding of the proposed edits before digging into the specific changes I want to accept or reject.

Conclusion: Understanding the Basics of Track Changes
Now that you have the basic knowledge for navigating through Track Changes, let’s take a look at tips for increasing your efficiency in part three.

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