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About Track Changes and Comments in MS Office

Introduction

"Track Changes" and "Comments" is a feature in Microsoft Office documents that facilitates review and collaboration. "Track Changes" and "Comments" can be helpful, but they must be removed before posting to our website or you'll risk showing the world potentially embarassing information.

Please bear in mind that web posting requests are considered final and ready to publish. Spelling errors, text omissions, and grammatical errors are not the responsibility of the Web Administrators. Moreover, we do not inspect documents for comments or tracked changes. If an MS Word document contains tracked changes or comments, it will be posted in that form.

What do tracked changes look like?

How to Remove Tracked Changes in Word 2007

To reject a tracked change
On the Review ribbon, in the Changes section, click Next Next or Previous Previous to navigate througth the changes.
Click Reject Reject Change Icon. Or, right-click on the tracked change and choose Reject Insertion or Reject Deletion, etc.

To accept one tracked change
On the Review ribbon, in the Changes section, click Next Next or Previous Previous to navigate througth the changes.
Click Accept Accept Change. Or, right-click on the tracked change and choose Accept Insertion or Accept Deletion, etc.

To accept/reject all changes in one step
On the Review ribbon, in the Changes section, hover over the Accept button Accept Change. Click on the arrow you see below the button. Choose Accept all Changes in Document.
To reject (or delete) all changes: on the Review ribbon, in the Changes section, hover over the Reject button Reject Change Icon. Click on the arrow you see below the button. Choose Reject all Changes in Document.

more on track changes

How to Remove Comments in Word 2007

To delete a single comment:
Right-click the comment, and then click Delete Comment
To delete all comments:
On the Review ribbon, in the Comments section, click the arrow below the Delete button, then click Delete All Comments in Document.

more about comments

Removing all Hidden Data in Office 2007

Note: You should save a copy of your original document because it is not always possible to restore the data that the Document Inspector removes.

  1. In the copy of your original document, click the Microsoft Office Button Office Button, go to Prepare, and then click Inspect Document.
  2. In the Document Inspector dialog box, select the check boxes to choose the types of hidden content that you want to be inspected.
  3. Click Inspect.
  4. Review the results of the inspection in the Document Inspector dialog box.
  5. Click Remove All next to the inspection results for the types of hidden content that you want to remove from your document.

more about comments

Last Updated: November 6, 2013