Making comments stand out

[RadicalMGC]

I am a copy editor. I want to be able to make corrections and comments on a
writer's document and then send it back to him so he can see what I've
suggested. To make it easier for him to see, I'd like the comments and
changes to stand out from the original text, either by coloring it or doing
something else. I know I can do it one element at a time by selecting the
phrase and making the change, but I would expect there to be a better, more
efficient way. Perhaps there's a setting in Preferences that will allow me
to enter EVERYTHING in a different color AUTOMATICALLY. I'd even accept an
additional piece of software if that would do the job. Any thoughts?

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

YOu could use the following macro



Dim acomment As Comment, commentrange As Range

For Each acomment In ActiveDocument.Comments

Set commentrange = acomment.Reference

commentrange.InsertBefore "[" & acomment.Author & " - " &
acomment.Range.Text & "]"

commentrange.Font.Italic = True

acomment.Reference.Delete

Next acomment


It is written to display the comment in italic font, but you can set any
other attribute (colour/size/marching red ants/blinking background/Las Vegas
Lights) as you choose.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[grammatim]

Turn on Track Changes, and send the author a pdf rather than a Word
file.

(Authors like to make changes in the Word files of edited works
without telling the copyeditor, which is how mistakes end up in the
printed version.)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Track Changes is what you want. In Word 2002 and above, comments and
deletions appear in "balloons" in the margin (in the color you choose),
while insertions are in the text but formatted as you choose (the default
formatting is underlining, in the color you choose). As grammatim suggests,
sending the edited document as a PDF would ensure that the writer would see
the markup as you intend it.