Accepting changes in word

Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Accepting All Formatting Changes.

Graciela has a huge document with many changes that were made with Track Changes turned on. Some of these changes are formatting changes and some of them are of other types, such as textual edits. Graciela would like to accept all the formatting changes but not the other types of changes. She is curious if there is an «accept all» command that will accept only the formatting changes.

It is relatively easy to accomplish this task. Just follow these steps:

1. Make sure the Review tab of the ribbon is displayed.
2. Click the Show Markup tool (in the Tracking group). Word displays some options that control what changes are shown.
3. Clear all the checkmarks, except the Formatting checkmark. (You will need to repeat step 2 for each checkmark you need to remove.)
4. Click the down-arrow under the Accept tool (in the Changes group). Word displays some different ways you can accept changes.
5. Choose Accept All Changes Shown. All the formatting changes (which is all that are shown) are accepted. (Don’t select Accept All Changes in Document; that would accept all the changes whether they are shown or not.)
6. Use the Show Markup tool to select which changes you want Word to show.

If you find yourself getting rid of the formatting changes quite a bit, you can instruct Word to not track formatting changes at all. Follow these steps if you are using Word 2007 or Word 2010:

1. Make sure the Review tab of the ribbon is displayed.
2. Click the down-arrow under the Track Changes tool (in the Tracking group) and then click Change Tracking Options. Word displays the Track Changes Options dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Track Changes Options dialog box.

3. Clear the Track Formatting check box.
4. Click OK.

If you are using Word 2013 or a later version, follow these steps instead:

1. Make sure the Review tab of the ribbon is displayed.
2. Click the small icon at the lower-right corner of the Tracking group. Word displays the Track Changes Options dialog box.
3. Click the Advanced Options button. Word displays the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box.

4. Clear the Track Formatting check box.
5. Click OK to close the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box.
6. Click OK to close the Track Changes Options dialog box.

Now Word won’t track any of the formatting changes you make in the document. If you find that the setting is not persistent from one Word session to another, you can create a small macro to run whenever a document is opened. Simply add this single line to the macro:

ActiveDocument.TrackFormatting = False

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen…

This article tells you how to view just one reviewer’s changes in Track Changes in Word (the screenshots are for Word 2010 and Word 2013 separately but this works for all version of Word, including Word 2003 and Word 2007). Once you can see the changes made by one editor or reviewer, you can delete the changes made by that one reviewer, leaving only the changes made by the other reviewers.

Why would I want to accept only one reviewer’s changes in Track Changes?

Recently, I worked on a document where I made all of my usual changes or comments, then the author responded and sent it back to me for re-checking. They hadn’t accepted my initial changes, but had told me in the email that they were OK. Because the document looked really messy and confusing, I wanted to accept all of my changes and just work with the author’s additions and amendments. Here’s how I did it.

Note, it looks slightly different in Word 2007/2010 and Word 2013, with subtly different terminology, so we’ll look at 2007-2010 first and then 2013

How do I see and accept one reviewer’s changes in Word 2007 and Word 2010?

Here’s our text, with comments and corrections by two reviewers, shown in two colours. What I want to do is accept the changes made in blue and just end up with the ones in red to review.

First of all, we need to show only one reviewer’s corrections. We do this in the Review tab, Track Changes area. Click on the arrow next to Show Markup and then Reviewers on the drop-down menu. This allows you to tick or un-tick by different names. IN this case, I want to interact with just the changes made in blue – the ones I want to accept. So I click on the tick box by the LB initials, to un-tick that box and only see Laura’s corrections:

Once I’ve done that, I can only see the blue corrections. Note that the red comment box has also disappeared. We only see comments and corrections by Laura, but the ones made by LB will still be there behind the scenes.

Now I want to accept these blue changes. In the Review tab, Track Changes, I click on the arrow at the bottom of the Accept button and click Accept All Changes Shown (it’s important to pick this one – if I chose Accept All Changes in Document, all of the changes, hidden and visible, would be accepted).

Now all of the blue changes have been accepted and only the comment by L[aura] is visible.

Just to prove that my corrections are still there, and in case I want to review those, we can view all reviewers by going back to Review – Track Changes – Show Markup – Reviewers and clicking in the box to tick LB:

Now I can see the corrections in red and all of the comment boxes, and review them happily.

How do I see and accept one reviewer’s changes in Word 2013?

Here is our text commented on and corrected by two people. I want to view and accept the red changes made by Laura, then view my own ones in blue to review them (Yes, if you’re reading this all the way through, Word 2010 and Word 2013 chose the opposite colours for the two reviewers).

First we need to view only the blue corrections in order to accept only those ones. In the Review tab, Track Changes area, click on Show Markup then Reviewers. This gives us the option to tick or untick by each individual reviewer. Here, I’m going to untick LB.

Now we can just see Laura’s changes in red.

We can accept these changes by choosing Review tab – Track Changes area and clicking on the arrow at the bottom of the Accept button. Then, we choose Accept All Changes Shown (note, Accept All Changes will accept all of the changes, red or blue, visible or hidden: we don’t want that):

Now all of the insertions and deletions have been accepted and we’re left with just the comment balloon:

To see and review the suggestions made in blue by me, we go back to Review tab – Track Changes area – Show Markup – Reviewers and re-tick by the LB:

Now we can see all of the changes suggested by LB as well as the comments by both people.

This is another one written when I had a specific need and had to go hunting around, so I hope you’ve found it useful. If so, please share using the buttons below or pop a comment on!

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2007, Word 2010 and Word 2013 all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here …

Related posts on this blog:

Track changes 1 – why use it, where can you find it, what can you do with it?

Track changes 2 – customising Track Changes

Track changes 3 – working with a document with tracked changes

Formatting comments balloons – everything you have ever wanted to know!

What to do if your comment boxes go tiny in Word – A common problem, hard to find the answer!

What to do if your comment box text runs right to left – Useful if you edit texts from Arabic authors

Changing the language in your comment balloons – From US to UK English and beyond …