How Do You Show Multiple Track Changes?

Jay Freedman

It's a Catch-22 situation in which there is no solution.

If each user tracks changes with a different user name, then later changes won't overwrite earlier ones.
If all users track changes with the same user name, later changes will overwrite earlier ones, which will then be lost.

The assumption underlying Track Changes is that if you alter "your own" changes, you no longer want the previous ones -- the only way to make separate sets of changes is to use a different user name.

You can temporarily change the user name in order to make new changes in the same spot as existing ones without losing the earlier changes. Use either of these methods in Word 2010* to get to the needed Options page:

On the Review tab, click the bottom half of the Track Changes button and click Change User Name.
Click File > Options > General

Change the user name, possibly just by adding a number to the end, and click OK. When you've made the change, you can go back to the Options and restore the original user name.

To see all the changes, such as earlier insertions that were later deleted, you might have to use the Reviewing Pane.

*In Word 2013, instead of the Track Changes button, click the dialog launcher in the bottom right corner of the Tracking group; there's a Change User Name button in the resulting dialog. In the Options dialog, in addition to changing the user name, you must check the box for "Always use these values regardless of sign in to Office" to prevent Track Changes from recording your signed-in account name.

_____________________________
https://jay-freedman.info

4 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Stefan Blom

The User Name (in File tab | Options) must be exactly the same on all computers that edit the document in question.

Actually, an easier solution, if you really want editors/users to be anonymous, is to run the Document Inspector (File tab | Info | Check for Issues | Inspect Document) and choose to remove "Document Properties and Personal Information," because this will clear user information (for the document) each time it is saved and reopened, and all edits will be attributed to a user named "Author."

Stefan Blom
Office Apps & Services (Word) MVP
Volunteer Moderator (Office)
~~~~
Please note that I do not work for Microsoft
MVP program info: https://mvp.microsoft.com/
~~~~

33 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Thank you. I really appreciate your response.

I realize I didn't provide quite enough information in my original post. I understand how Track Changes interacts with the user name (we are using Office 2010.)

But we run into a problem when personal information is removed from the document, either through Trust Center settings or via a document scrub. Once the existing tracked changes are attributed to the generic "Author" is there a way to update them so that user name is applied instead?

When attempting to make additional revisions to a document that has had personal information removed, it seems that Track Changes performs as it should when a different user name is in play (i.e., Author and the standardized user name.)

I'm concerned about being able to adequately trouble-shoot issues when track changes is not overwriting the earlier changes, which is the behavior most users want to see in this particular setting.

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Thank you, I'd considered that easier option, but I think it would still show multiple sets of edits, attributed to the generic "Author" wouldn't it?

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Stefan Blom

Hmm, it would be a single set of edits attributed to "Author."

Stefan Blom
Office Apps & Services (Word) MVP
Volunteer Moderator (Office)
~~~~
Please note that I do not work for Microsoft
MVP program info: https://mvp.microsoft.com/
~~~~

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

We had the exactly same issue arising out of track changes where there are multiple users with same User Names. Despite using the same User Name in Word 2013 for each user, it does not regard the same user name when the track changes is open and where the users are editing the document through different computers. What happened was that three different users work on the same document with the same user name, before sending such document to client, despite the fact that the track changes does depend on "by author" it appoints different colours for these three users.

I prefer answering step by step so please follow the steps below:

1- open an email account preferably with the extension of "@outlook.com" (for example: *** Email address is removed for privacy ***)

2- I suggest you to provide the name of the firm as a name in the acoount so that all users are seen as same user when one, e.g. the client, will look at such document.

2- sign in with this account for each users' computer in Word 2013.

3- File>Options>User Name(could be the name or the initials of the firm)

4- Please check the box saying "Always use this values regardless of sign in to Office."

5- Review>Tracking Change Options>Advanced Options>Please ensure that all of the boxes picked as "by author"

As a result, in case the track changes is open, all the users in the firm, can edit, review, comment on the document, and someone (e.g.) looking at such document is to see only one colour.

2 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.