Using Track Changes with Emailed Documents

[JenC]

Hello,

I am a fairly competent Word user, but I've always been a bit confused by
Track Changes when working on a document that's edited via email. I'm hoping
someone can point me to a resource that might explain so I can understand it
once and for all!

I seem to remember that in older versions of Word (maybe a few versions
ago), there was an option to open a document received by email, make changes
(using the Track Changes feature), then email it back to the sender with
changes.

I can no longer figure out a way to do this. It seems that if someone sends
me a document to review, I need to open it, make the tracked changes, then
save it to my own files before emailing it back to them. This is very
annoying - I don't need multiple copies of these documents littering my
files, and if I do need to refer to the changes I made, they will be captured
in the email I sent back. It's just one more step for me to go back and
manually delete the created file.

Is there a way to do this without saving first? Or is this another example
of Word trying to save me from myself and making things more complicated in
the process?

Thanks,
Jen

 

[Stefan Blom]

You should always save the e-mail attachment to your hard drive before
making changes to the file. Otherwise, you're working with a file downloaded
to your temporary internet files folder; any changes to that file will be
lost when you close it.

 

[JenC]

Thanks for your response, Stefan. For large documents that I'm going to spend
a lot of time with, I absolutely agree - I know documents stored in temp
files are finicky, and I wouldn't want to risk losing something I'd done a
lot of work on.

But in a lot of cases, someone sends me a short document that needs a 5-10
minute review (like meeting minutes for a meeting I attended). I really don't
want a copy of the document, since I'm going to be sent the final version
anyway. So I end up having to save a copy and then immediately go back and
delete it - not the most efficient process, and if I forget to delete it, I
end up with multiple copies of a non-critical document.

I also know that when I used to do this with earlier versions, I NEVER lost
a document, even those longer ones that can be a problem. I'm sure it CAN
happen, but for these short documents, I'm quite willing to take the chance.

It just seems like there should be a way to do this. I know I "should" save
it to my hard drive, but if I don't want to, is there a way to get around it?

Jen

 

[Stefan Blom]

In that case, in Word 2003, File | Send To | Mail Recipient (as Attachment)
would do what you want, as it creates an e-mail message and adds the current
document as an attachment.

I don't know if the corresponding command is still available in Word 2007. I
certainly couldn't find it in Word Options, Customize.

 

[JenC]

Thanks Stefan - I couldn't remember the name of the command (Send to Mail
Recipient), but when I searched, I was able to find it. You have to add the
command to the QAT.

Much appreciated!

 

[Lene Fredborg]

As far as I can see, Office button > Send category > E-mail is the same
command as the previous File > Send To > Mail Recipient (as Attachment).

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg - Microsoft MVP (Word)
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I can confirm that that is the case. The one that's actually a challenge to
find is the command to send the document as the body of an email (which I've
never wanted to do, but we get a lot of questions about that here).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Stefan Blom]

Hmm, apparently that was too easy. I didn't even think to look under the
Office button for this. Thank you!