whenever i am working on a document my colleagues see the edits and the
original text in a big mess. I am trying to figure out how to change the
settings so that the "final" view, completely clean of edit marks is the only
version that is sent out. How do I do this?
You must distinguish between the *existence* of revisions and
*display* of revisions. If there are any revisions still in the
document when you send it out, your colleagues will be able to display
them -- regardless of whether *you* have them displayed or hidden.
Before you send the document to anyone else, you must either accept or
reject every revision. (You can do this one by one, or accept all, or
reject all.) Once you've done that, the revisions no longer exist so
they can't be displayed. All that's left is plain text.
In addition to revision marking, there are other things stored in
documents that you may or may not want others to see. Read the
appropriate articles for enlightenment:
How to Minimize Metadata in Word
WD97:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=223790
WD2000:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=237361
WD2002:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=290945
Remove Hidden Data add-in for Office 2003 and Office XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=834427
Protecting Personal Data in Your Word 2003 Documents
http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odc_wd2003_ta/html/odc_WDProtectWord2003.asp