Making Comments and Tracked Changes with Word's Reviewing Toolbar

 

The Wonders of

 

The same activity in five steps,
un-illustrated

     Word's reviewing toolbar allows reviewers to "write in the margins" of an author's work. 

Practice Editing Activity in 10 Illustrated Steps:

     1. Open any old old text document of your own to experiment on. Content is not important, though it should be in paragraph form. (When finished, close without saving to preserve your original document.)

     2. Open the reviewing toolbar in Word

Open Reviewing Toolbar

 

AS A REVIEWER:

     Making comments

     3. First highlight a portion of the text in the Word document by dragging your mouse across it with the left button down. Select a few sentences. When highlighted, they will look something like this.  


Comment Icon

     4. Click the Yellow Comment Icon, which opens the Comments Window at the bottom of the document.

Note: Windows Word XP (Word 10) users might see colored Comment balloons popping up in the right margin. That is a new feature. The balloon comments pop up when viewing a document in Print Layout mode (View >Print Layout). XP users can use the classic comments feature by viewing their document in Normal mode (View >Normal).  This lesson will give examples using classic comment screen shots.
If you use Word XP and want to know more about balloon comments, see the SideBar Lesson Below.

Comment balloons
in Windows Word XP  Sidebar Lesson 

     5. In the Comments Window, type a few sentences, perhaps some glowing compliments about yourself.

     6. Make at least two more comments elsewhere in the document. (Repeat steps 3-5). Continue until you are comfortable making comments.

     7. Close the Comment Window.

 Making tracked changes


Track-Changes Icon

8. Turn on tracked changes by clicking the Track-Changes Icon. (To turn off, click it again.) With it on, add a sentence anywhere in your practice document. It should appear in a color and underlined. If it does not, make certain the Track Changes Icon is selected.  Now, delete a sentence somewhere else.  This is a deleted sentence. Deletions will either be strike-through or ballooned. Continue to add content and delete sections of text until you are comfortable with the Track Changes feature.

_________________________________________  

AS AUTHOR reading a review:

Viewing comments

Pop-Up Comment

A pink pop-up comment window

     9. Review the comments by putting your mouse over the highlighted text associated with your comments. Text will either be highlighted with yellow background or with Office XP the use of [red brackets.]
A colored pop-up window containing the comment will appear, or in XP Print Layout View it will be in a right-margin balloon. When you are finished reading the comment, right click on it to delete. (Mac: Control + Click).



      The Right-Click Menu
when your mouse is over a comment

Viewing tracked changes



The Right-Click Menu
when your mouse is over a change

     10. To respond to each suggested change, right click on each incidence and select either Accept or Reject. Accept turns the colored text black and incorporates it into the story. Reject deletes the change. Try both options to see what happens to your text. In Mac, use Control + click.

When finished, close your practice document without saving and it will be unharmed by our editing session

Four additional screenshots to support the instructions above 

Captions are in green.

  • Making a comment

  • Viewing a comment

  • Making a tracked change

  • Viewing a tracked change

Making a comment

  The reviewer swept "flew to Italy for Christmas" and clicked the Yellow Comment Icon (top left). The comment window opened at the bottom of the document. The review wrote his comment in that window.

Viewing a comment

 

Viewing a comment: When the author gets his manuscript back, he simply puts his mouse over the yellow text and the comment appears in a pop-up window.

To delete the comment, right-click on the yellow text and select delete from the pop-up menu.

      Making a Tracked Change

 

Making Tracked Changes: In the example above the reviewer made two changes:
1.) He added a phrase ", where he was studying Italian"
2.) He deleted the sentence: He needed us to help him pack and pay his bills.  Notice that tracked deletions are marked with a line through the text.

Viewing a Tracked Change

  Viewing Tracked Changes: When the author gets his manuscript back, he has a choice to Accept or Reject Changes by right-clicking on each incidence of red text. If he Accepts the Change, the new text turns black and becomes part of the story. If he Rejects the Change, the new text disappears.

 
End