Multiple Reviewers, sharing a document?

[Guest]

I have a large Word doc that is to be reviewed by several users. I'd like to
make the document available to all of them at the same time, but I don't know
how that will affect their comments as they make them (through track changes)
on the document. Can anyone give me a brief overview of how the track
changes feature works on a shared document? Thanks!!

 

[Jay Freedman]

For starters, Word doesn't _do_ shared documents. The first person who opens
a document gets the exclusive right to save changes to it, and anyone else
who opens it while the first user still has it will get a read-only copy --
any changes would have to be saved to a different filename.

There are basically two strategies for multiple reviewers:

(a) Sequential reviewing, where each user reviews the document and then
passes it to the next user. Set the Track Changes options to color the
insertions and deletions "By Author". (But see
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/trackchanges/HowTrackChangesWorks.html for
cautions.)

(b) Parallel (but not shared) reviewing, where each user gets a separate
copy of the original document. As the copies are returned to you, use the
"merge changes" command to make one combined document. Look at the Help
topic "About sending a file for review" (if you have trouble finding it
through the Help task pane, it's online at
http://office.microsoft.com/assista...010227131033&QueryID=vbtBTNk0S0&respos=3&rt=2).

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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[Guest]

This is EXTREMELY helpful information - thanks so much!