Changes in the same color

[Alan]

Word 2003 often presents me with changes by two authors (sometimes one
of them me) in the same color. As you might imagine, this makes the
editing process much more challenging. I understand there's no way to
control which color goes to which author, but surely this behavior
represents something being broken? If so, can it be fixed somehow?

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Chances are, one or more of your reviewers is running Word with "Remove
personally identifiable information" or "Store random number" set wrongly in
Tools>Options>Save.

If you remove identifiable information, there is no author name to assign
colours to. If you do not include the random number, Word can't separate
the editing sessions.

Cheers

Word 2003 often presents me with changes by two authors (sometimes one
of them me) in the same color. As you might imagine, this makes the
editing process much more challenging. I understand there's no way to
control which color goes to which author, but surely this behavior
represents something being broken? If so, can it be fixed somehow?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Alan]

Thanks, John. In every case, the correct name of the reviewer is
associated with his/her changes, and that person's name appears next
to that color when the "Show Reviewers" option is chosen; it's simply
that the same color will be next to two names.

With respect to the random number, it's in Tools>Options>Security, and
is checked on my machine. Could that alone, unchecked on other
reviewers' machines, cause this behavior?

Alan

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Alan:

Yes, I think so. The random number is used to make each change "globally
unique", so I suspect it could have this effect if it weren't there.

The other thing of course, could be that the system has simply run out of
available colours. How many reviewers are there?

Cheers

Thanks, John. In every case, the correct name of the reviewer is
associated with his/her changes, and that person's name appears next
to that color when the "Show Reviewers" option is chosen; it's simply
that the same color will be next to two names.

With respect to the random number, it's in Tools>Options>Security, and
is checked on my machine. Could that alone, unchecked on other
reviewers' machines, cause this behavior?

Alan

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Alan]

We're talking only about two to four reviewers, John, so I'd think it
unlikely the system has run out of colors. But then again, this is
Microsoft Office we're talking about.<g>

Alan