Word 2007: The Missing Manual

Chapter 16. Collaborating with Other People

Whether you’re collaborating with a coauthor or reviewing someone else’s manuscript, Word makes it easy to communicate as you edit. In precomputing days, editing a paper document resulted in a jumble of red pen marks, crossed out text, and notes scrawled in the margins. If several people reviewed a document, figuring out who said what was a nightmare. Word resolves those issues by keeping track of all changes and all reviewers. Word stores everything in the document file and, with a click of your mouse, you can show or hide the comments and edits.

This chapter looks at the reviewing process from all angles. You learn how to insert comments into a document and how to manage comments made by reviewers. The chapter covers the entire process of tracking changes and accepting or rejecting changes made by others. You even learn how to record voice comments with your document. Finally, you’ll learn how to combine and compare two documents so only the right parts make it to the final draft.

Adding Comments

Collaborating is all about clear communication, so Word lets you attach easy-to-read comments directly to the text you’re referring to. What could be clearer? Even better, for documents with several reviewers, Word keeps track of who said what, when (Figure 16-1). That makes it a breeze for authors to follow up on a comment and get more details.

When you select text and add a comment, Word marks it with the date, time, and your name or initials, ...