If Revision tool ON, "Highlight changes ..." won't stay OFF

[Guest]

Word 2003: On the Highlight Changes pulldown menu (on Reviewing toolbar): I
put the Revision tool ON (Track changes while editing) and de-select
"Highlight changes on screen" and "Highlight changes in printed document".
Under the "Show" pulldown, I select Final and de-select Comments, Ink
Annotations, Insertions and Deletions, and Formatting. I save and close the
document. When I re-open, the Track changes is ON but "Highlight changes on
screen" and "Highlight changes in printed document" are also back ON, along
with all the Show items! This is a worse version of the Word 2002 bug where
"Highlight changes on screen" and "Highlight changes in printed document"
couldn't be un-linked, but at least it didn't screw up the Track changes.
Help!!

 

[Beth Melton]

I personally wouldn't use the old ToolsRevisions command since they
drastically revised the Track Changes feature in Word 2002.

"Highlight changes on screen" is equal to "Final" and "Highlight
changes in printed document" is no longer functional. You can deselect
it but the option will turn back on if you change the view to "Final
showing markup".

IOW, ToolsRevisions may still be an available command but it is an
obsolete function and it is not the same as it was in previous
versions of Word - before they revamped tracked changes.

If you do not want to view or print tracked changes then use the
"Final" or "Original" view.

What I suspect you are looking for is the ability to open a document
without the Tracked Changes appearing, correct?

Although ill-advised, you can go to Tools/Options/Security and turn
off "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving" to prevent the
security feature from being utilized when you open documents with
tracked changes.

I'm not sure why you think this security option "screws up" tracked
changes. To remove tracked changes from view it's a simple matter of
clicking the "Display for Review" drop down on the Reviewing toolbar
and selecting "Final".

Personally a couple clicks is worth the alternative - accidentally
sending out a document containing tracked changes. There's a lot of
people out there with a little (or a lot) of egg on their face because
they unknowingly sent out such documents.

Keep in mind, even though you may not see tracked changes on your
screen they are still present in the document. If you should email a
document with Tracked Changes then it is likely the recipient will
automatically see the tracked changes upon opening the document. The
"Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving" is an application
option and it is not stored with the document as it was in previous
versions of Word.

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

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