Can I customize the colors available in Track Changes?

[comolake]

I have a colleague who customarily does all pen-and-paper editing in a
"signature" color that is not among the Track Changes color options. Is it
possible to change the available palette?

Thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

No, the colors offered are the only ones available for this feature. A
custom color could be applied to the text, but this would be direct font
formatting.

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

 

[comolake]

Thank you for the speedy reply!

I suspected this would be the case. One followup question - Is it the kind
of thing that could be modified by a programmer working on the source code,
by any chance?

 

[Jay Freedman]

Technically, a programmer working on the source code could do anything. However,
considering that the source code of Word is proprietary to Microsoft, the
question is meaningless. The controlling consideration is whether the managers
of the Office division would think it worth the time and expense to make the
change, ensure that it's backwardly compatible with older versions, test that it
works in all the various languages, and adequately test it; and balance that
expense against whatever additional revenue that could be expected because of
the change. The phrase "a snowball's chance" comes to mind.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.

 

[comolake]

Now that I think about it I don't know what I was thinking! I'd had it in my
head that it was possible for some techy person to get into the source code
and tinker, but I've just had a big V-8 moment. Thanks for answering.

 

[Crystal]

Mr. Freedman, I have the same question. In Word 2007 the font color palette
is just awful. I have documents with black text but want to be able to choose
a different color for an occasional word here and there. I want the same
color that a hyperlink is (RGB 0-0-255) but that color is not available on
the Word 2007 font color pallette. When I add that particular color to the
palette, it is gone again when I log off and back on again. I got a snippy
suggestion from Suzanne Barnhill to use Styles, but I don't see how styles
would apply to changing the color of an occasional word here and there in a
document. I found themes, but have discovered that a new theme can only be
chosen for a new document, I cannot change to a different theme with
preferred font colors in an existing document. Can you please pass on a
request to the powers that be at Microsoft to stop limiting what we can do in
Word and stop making such drastic changes with every new incarnation of Word?
They are not making it better, they are making it worse -- and less and less
user friendly. They seem to have no idea what end users actually use the
program for. In Word 2007 they have also taken away the ability to use Shift
F-5 to find the most recently edited spot in a document, so now I have to
hunt and seek for the place I left off editing several days and several
documents ago. How is this better? And whoever chose those colors for the
font color pallette in Word 2007 should be fired. I'm sorry if I sound
snippy -- I don't mean to, I know it's nothing you have done or have control
over.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Crystal,

While I sympathize with your frustrations, my answer is going to be quite
similar to Suzanne's -- the only way to store a custom font color between
Word sessions is to create a character style that includes that color, and
apply that style to each word or phrase that needs it. A character style can
include any font formatting you want; for example, the built-in character
style named Emphasis merely applies italic formatting to whatever is
selected. Similarly, you can define a character style named Blue and make it
include just the pure blue color.

I don't know why the blue in the palette isn't RGB 0-0-255, but it's a PITA
because you can't use "blue" as a search criterion in the Find dialog if
you're dealing with a file from previous versions; the new blue doesn't
match the old one. I suspect that the Office developers took their mandate
to "make it easy to produce good-looking documents" too literally and
enlisted some arty-designer types to give them a makeover. :-(

There should be no reason you can't change the theme in an existing document
whenever you want. What happens when you try?

The Shift+F5 shortcut still works, but only during the current session. The
problem here was a design oversight: there is no place in the new .docx
format to store the built-in bookmark named \PrevSel1, which in previous
versions was the place the first press of Shift+F5 would go. The MVPs told
Microsoft about this during the Office 2007 beta, but it was apparently too
late to get it fixed. I hope it's in the bug database to be fixed in the
next version.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Crystal]

Mr. Freedman, thank you very much, I really appreciate such a complete and
gracious answer. Again, I apologize if I sound snippy, I don't mean to, but
it is frustrating when one gets used to doing work a certain way and then all
familiar options are yanked away and one must find totally new options that
don't seem to work as well.

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you meant in the paragraph about PITA,
can you explain that a little further?

When I try to choose a different Theme in an existing document, the option
is grayed out and can't be selected. When I open a new blank document, the
Theme option becomes available to be selected again. Is there a checkbox I
need to change or something?

Thank you for telling me about Shift F-5 working in a document that I
haven't closed yet. That is helpful. Maybe I can just lock my computer at
night and not close out of the documents I'm working on, but I think our
system is taken offline during the night, which would prompt a reboot the
next morning anyway. I try to remember to add my own bookmark before closing
a document and can then Go To that bookmark but sometimes forget.

I will try your suggestion to use Styles. However, just to add my 2¢, one
of the many reasons I don't use Styles is because of having the style window
open. You are probably a younger man with good vision, but I'm 52 and my
eyesight is not what it once was. I refuse to have my screen resolution set
to microscopic. I have a hard time seeing most of the dinky screens, such as
this reply window, and have to enlarge them. Thanks heavens I found
Control+Scroll! In Word 2007, if I have the ribbon open, ONE-THIRD of my
screen is taken up. If I also have the style window, or clipboard window, or
clipart window, etc., open, that's another big chunk of my document that I
can't see. Also, as I told Suzanne Barnhill, I don't know of anyone who uses
or likes Styles -- they are not user friendly and whenever I try to use one
it makes unintended changes that I didn't want. I'm sure the programmers had
good intentions with creating them but the only people I know of who are fans
of styles are instructors -- not the people who have to apply them in the
real world.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You don't have to have the Styles & Formatting task pane open to use styles.
You can add the Style dropdown to the QAT and use that. You could also
assign a keyboard shortcut to your character style (in the same way that you
can use Ctrl+B and Ctrl+I for bold and italic. For instructions on how to
create a character style, see
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/StyleRef.htm

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

 

[Jay Freedman]

Well, young lady, I'm 61, though my eyesight has actually improved since
last year's cataract surgery. Be that as it may, you don't need to have the
Styles pane open to apply a style. You can assign a keyboard shortcut to it.
Go to Office button > Word Options > Customize, click the Keyboard Customize
button, select the Styles category and the name of the character style, and
assign a shortcut. For instance, Ctrl+Alt+B is usually available. (This is
the 2007 version of the procedure at
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/AsgnCmdOrMacroToHotkey.htm.)

Also, you don't have to have the whole ribbon taking up space all the time.
Ctrl+F1 hides and unhides it, or you can double-click any of the tabs across
the top. While it's minimized, single-click any tab to choose one command
from it, and then it will hide again.

If you apply a style and the whole document changes, there's a setting you
need to turn off. Read
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/WholeDocumentReformatted.htm.

What I meant about searching is this: In the Find dialog you can click More

Format > Font and choose a color to search for, and it should find any

text that has that color. If you open a document from Word 2003 or earlier
that contains blue text created in the older version, it will be RGB
0-0-255. In Word 2007, when you select the blue patch in the palette as the
color to search for, it will be the new blue, RGB 0-112-192. That will cause
the match to fail, and the search won't find anything. You'd have to go into
the More Colors dialog and specify 0-0-255 instead. Worse, if you (or more
likely I) program a macro to search for blue text, the result may depend on
which version of Word assigned the font color. That's a PITA.

 

[Crystal]

Thank you. Any idea which Style option I should add to the QA toolbar? The
All Commands shows 11 different Styles to choose from, and not having used
them much I don't know which one to pick. Also thank you for the link;
unfortunately, the IT dept here has a program called Websense (a complete
misnomer, as it makes no sense) that blocks 'The Websense category "Social
Networking and Personal Sites" ' so I'm unable to read the information.

 

[grammatim]

I think the youngster (I'm 57) was asking what "PITA" means, and it
ain't Middle Eastern bread.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It's not any of the ones called "Styles" (I agree these are quite confusing)
but the one called "Style," showing a dropdown. If you mouse over it, the
ScreenTip says "Commands Not in the Ribbon | Style (StyleGalleryClassic)."

I imagine you might be able to access my site from home or elsewhere, but
since it would appear that your IT department is blogging the entire
mvps.org domain (which includes the very useful word.mvps.org site), you
might have a word with the admin.

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

 

[Crystal]

okay youse guys, I'm going to be picking your brains because in 5 years when
I can retire from the City of Phx I'll be in the running for the Crabby
Office Lady gig. I can out-crabby her with 1 hand tied behind my back.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Crabby is okay if you know as much as the Crabby Office Lady. BTW, I will be
65 this year. I do have the advantage of a good-sized LCD monitor, but it is
not a widescreen, which is what task panes were designed to take advantage
of. I also have computer glasses (computers and bifocals don't mix!).

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

 

[Crystal]

I wish I did know as much as she does. I just have the "crabby" part down
pat. I may have to resort to getting some computer glasses too. I have a
widescreen monitor but have found that it doesn't increase what you can see,
it only stretches out what is there and makes it look distorted, so is of
little help.

Thank you all for your helpful comments and I bow to all the years of
experience combined among you. I will try the Styles thing, but am dubious
that I'll be able to figure out how to use it the way I need it. We did
figure out how to turn off that "automatically update styles feature" years
ago. I had forgotten about that, but I think that was one more reason why no
one here bothered to try to use styles. When there's less staff due to
budget cuts, and more work with fewer people to do it, it's hard to find the
time to try to learn the techniques that might help us do our jobs easier.
I've signed up for one of the webinars coming up on 5/20 and am looking
forward to learning a lot about Word 2007.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

For a jumpstart on using styles, see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/stylesms/index.html. As for the widescreen
monitor, if it is stretching and distorting your window, then it may be that
the screen resolution needs to be changed to a more appropriate one. I'm
absolutely no expert on this, but I've seen enough widescreen TVs in stores
that were obviously incorrectly set that this was one of the things we
thoroughly explored when we brought home our new HDTV!

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