To assign a specific color to your own tracked changes, on the Word menu, click Preferences, and then under Output and Sharing, click Track Changes. In the Color boxes, select the color that you want. How to Change the Default Author Name in Microsoft Word > Closed. If you wish to change the name of author in the documents you are creating, you will have to manually change it on the Info.

When editing documents in the old days, we passed around a printed document and used different colored pens. If you were in the publishing industry, you had specific marks to identify changes and you probably made suggestions in the margins.

Word's Track Changes feature is similar, but edits and changes are made electronically. It's a collaborative tool that's easy to use, but some users struggle with its many options and fail to get the most out of it. In this article, we'll review the basics so you can put its flexibility to work for you.

Note: You can use most any document with plenty of text to edit if you'd like to follow along with the examples. Or you can download the example or document. If you're still using Word 2003, your document won't match those shown in this article, but the basic options are still available. Turn it on You can edit a document without using Track Changes — simply make your changes. For most of us, it's all we need.

If you need a version history or you want to collaborate with others, use Track Changes. To enable Track Changes, click the Review tab and then click the Track Changes option in the Tracking group. Then, select Track Changes from the drop-down's list.

In Word 2003, display the Reviewing toolbar by choosing Toolbars from the View menu and checking Reviewing. Users are often confused by this feature's on and off status. When Track Changes is enabled, the option's background is solid, as shown in Figure A. When it's disabled, the background is transparent. The button acts as a toggle — click it to enable it, click it again to disable it.

A background color indicates that the feature is enabled. In addition, you can add the Track Changes indicator, shown in Figure B, to the Status bar by right-clicking the Status bar and selecting Track Changes. Figure B Add the Track Changes indicator to the Status bar.

If a change is necessary — not preferential — and you don't need the author's permission, you can temporarily disable Track Changes by clicking the Status bar indicator. Make your change, and then click the indicator again to turn the feature back on.

That way, the author has fewer stops to make during the last edit. How to make a usb bootable for mac os x maverick in windows. What it looks like With Track Changes enabled, changes are visible in markup form. For example, if you delete text, it doesn't disappear. Instead, Word displays it using its Strikeout font. Word underlines added text.

Figure C shows a simple markup including deleted and added text, among other changes. Figure C Track Changes lets you see suggested changes. Most people never change the default formats, but you can by clicking the dialog launcher for the Tracking group. In the resulting dialog, click Advanced Options. In 2010, choose Change Tracking Options from the Track Changes drop-down. Figure D shows the resulting dialog. Spend a little time reviewing these options so you can customize the settings to your advantage.

Figure D You can change the default formats. Word will assign a different markup color for each user so you can easily track multiple reviewers. By default, the color for many edits is dependent on the reviewer, but you can force a specific color that's independent of the reviewer. You might find that you don't need to view all revision notes, and Word will let you remove some of them. For instance, perhaps you don't want to view formatting changes. In this case, you'd open the Track Changes Options ( Figure D) and uncheck the Track Formatting option.