Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

Change Tracking

When it’s time to mark up a document for revision, many people who otherwise use their Mac for everything still turn to paper, red pen, and highlighter. After all, marking up a printout lets you see both the original and your handwritten edits at a glance. And when you collaborate with others on a paper or project, you can use different colored ink to differentiate the various editors.

The problem with the paper method is that you eventually have to retype the document, incorporating all the handwritten comments, into Word.

To avoid all that hassle, you can simply edit onscreen in Word. Word has tools that highlight text in a multitude of colors and see at a glance who made what changes. Even better than paper, Word can automate the process of comparing and merging edited documents. On the downside, it’s tough to make origami from your monitor—unless it’s one of the new really flat screens…

Getting Ready for Change Tracking

In order for Word’s change-tracking tools to work properly, you need to tell Word how you want your name to appear (when it’s used to “sign” comments and changes) and how to display the changes.

Identify yourself

Especially if you’re working with others, Word needs to know who you are so that your name can be attached to your version and your changes. To ensure that Word knows your inner scribe, choose Word → Preferences → User Information panel. If your name isn’t already there, fill in the panel. Word will use the name in the author box to identify ...