Because books don’t make themselves.

Our team members use track changes for developmental/substantive editing or copy editing so we can keep track of book files in progress.

The track changes feature can be activated in two ways:
Double click on the TRK box at the bottom of the screen (see REC TRK EXT OVR WPH on the bottom toolbar). OR Click on the “Tools” menu, point to “Track Changes,” click on “Highlight Changes,” and click in the box “Track changes while editing” so that a checkmark (✔) appears in the box.

Here are a few other things I’ve learned through trial and error…mostly error, but I’m learning.

Beware! If you try to copy and paste text from a file that’s been edited using the track changes feature, when you paste the text to a new document, the track changes features will be lost. (Yes, L-O-S-T, just like the TV show.) Text will carry over, but changes that have been added will not appear in a different color and anything that’s been deleted will not appear with a line through it; you just won’t see it at all. To make a new file and retain the track changes, use the “Save As” feature under the “File” menu.

I also like to add comments. You can use the comment feature in Word by highlighting the text you want to query and clicking the button for “New Comment”. If the button doesn’t show up in your toolbar, go to the “View” menu and pull it down to “Toolbars.” Click on “Reviewing,” and you’ll get another toolbar where you can click to insert a comment, go to the next or previous comment, edit a comment, or delete a comment.

These are a couple of favorites. I told you mine, will you tell me yours?

Bel