When Out of Sight Is Not Alright

We all dread sending an email which has slipped through without a spell check. And becomes nad, and best wishes, vest fishes. My favourite sign off is - "please contact me if you have nay queries". Nay queries? Why would the client dream of getting in touch if they didn't have anything to query?

An email with a few spelling mistakes or grammatical errors can be excused as a rushed message that has slipped through in haste. But when an entire document gets back to a client with comments and alterations showing, it's just not professional.

And this is why many people dread using the Track Changes facility in Microsoft Word 2007. Their worst fear is that somehow the client will see all the text changes and alterations they have suggested - an author's nightmare.

But using Tracking is a useful tool when an important document has be read and reviewed by more than one person - and becoming confident with Tracking doesn't have to set you off the rails.

To get started with Tracking in Microsoft Word 2007, ensure that Track Changes has been selected in the Review Group in your document. In order to make using the function easier, you can customise the status bar to add an indicator that tells you when change tracking is on or off.

When the Track Changes feature is on, you can view all of the changes as you create these in a document. When you turn off the Track Changes feature, you can make changes to a document without seeing the markup. But remember, turning off Track Changes prevents any more changes from being tracked but does not delete the corrections already in the document.

To type a new comment, go to the Comments group and click New Comment. A balloon will appear in the right hand margin and you can now add in your comment. This shaded, non-printing area is called the mark up area. Any further text revisions - such as deletions and insertions also appear in balloons in this side margin. Deletions are shown with a strike-through effect and additions will be underlined.

All changes appear in a second colour so that a reviewer can easily see these. Formatting changes are displayed as balloons in the mark up area, and a vertical bar will be seen on the left hand side margin next to each sentence that contains tracked changes. And when another author makes additional changes, these will be in a new colour. The author's initials are automatically inserted and the comments numbered as they are added.

Of course you can make comments in the document without making any changes. You can also limit the type of changes you can see. For example, by clicking on the checked box on Insertions and Deletions, you will no longer view any insertions or deletions in the document.

And if you want only to look at revisions and changes made by certain reviews, go to the Show Markup and click on the Reviewers' option to select or deselected certain reviewers.

To review and accept or reject changes in a document, turn off tracked changes and insert the cursor at the beginning of the text. Then in the Changes group, click Next. The cursor will now appear on the first comment or amendment. At this point you can either accept or reject the change, then go to next amendment. To get a cleaner view of your document you can hide the markup using choices Show Markup.

By accepting or rejecting proposed changes, you can decide which changes you would like to keep one at a time, or you can accept all the revisions in one click.

Just like Track Changes, comments can be deleted one by one, or all at once. If, however, you are happy to accept changes and delete all comments, the quick and easy way to finalise the copy is to select Final in the Final Showing Markup options.

Now, if you are happy with your document when you view it in the Final mode, you can use the Document Inspector to ensure that all the mark up in your document disappears - forever!

To use the Document Inspector, click the Office Button and point to Prepare, then choose Inspect Document. Now uncheck all the boxes apart from the first one which selects Comments, Revisions, Versions and Annotations. By clicking on Inspect, you will be notified of any comments or revisions still stored in the text. You will have the option to Remove All. Now that the Document Inspector has been run, and the comments have been removed from the document, you can be confident that no gremlins will creep in to your final version.

And remember - turning off the Track Changes feature doesn't delete the changes - this only prevents new changes from being displayed as markup. And unchecking options in Show Markup, only temporarily hides changes, it does not permanently delete the markup.

Just before closing the document, select Show Markup and ensure that all boxes are checked so that you can make sure that all comments or text alterations have been dealt with. Then, under the Reviewers option, ensure that All Reviewers is also checked - this is another way of making sure you have 'caught' all of the comments. As a final check, select Next in the Changes group. If you have successfully dealt with all of the comments and rejected or accepted all changes, a message should indicate that there are no comments or tracked changes in the document.

If it's crucial that you keep a copy of comments and alterations to a document, but need to save the final without any comments appearing, it's recommended that you save a copy of the file with the markup on page. In the final version accept or reject all tracked changes and delete all comments. In the version you need to keep as a backup showing who amended what, you can leave the tracked changes and comments in place. Now you can be sure that the final document won't have any unwanted gremlins - and nay queries.