Those of us who provide book editing services are of course very familiar with Word’s Tracked Changes, but it is a feature those who do not work in editing or proofreading are frequently unfamiliar with. To put it simply, Track Changes does exactly what its title suggests: It keeps track of any changes made in a document.
With Tracked Changes enabled, additions are shown in red, deletions are crossed out, and formatting changes are indicated by small bubbles in the file’s margins. These settings are also customizable, so one may opt to show changes in a range of colors coded to a specific kind of edit. Any text that has been moved within the file, for instance, can be shown in blue, while other changes are shown in red, or whichever color one prefers.
All of this is extremely useful for collaborating on a piece of writing, whether it be an essay, a book, or a business document, as it allows each user to review the changes others have made without requiring tedious comparisons. Track Changes includes a feature that allows one to examine each change and accept or reject it as one sees fit.
Depending on the nature of the book or paper editing services that you have requested, however, the editor may choose to “lock” the files, which makes it impossible to change anything within the text without it being tracked. This is especially common in publishing, when the author’s job is simply to review the changes and indicate with in-text notes those they want to accept and those they would prefer to reject. The editor is then tasked with reviewing these notes and “cleaning” the files of all Tracked Changes markup accordingly.
It is also common for editors and proofreaders to send multiple copies of a document back to a client, one with markup and one without. This is to allow for preference; some writers don’t want to navigate through all the Tracked Changes, which can be burdensome, instead preferring to simply review the new, clean document.
Whatever approach your editor takes, Tracked Changes is an essential part of the editing process when working with Microsoft Word, and it is worth knowing some of the basics of how it works before you engage with professional editing services. Of course, editors usually provide guidelines for this process themselves, but familiarizing yourself with Tracked Changes beforehand will ease the learning curve and provide an invaluable tool for all future paper editing you may wish to do either alone or in collaboration with others. There are numerous visual guides and videos online, and a good place to start is Microsoft’s own guide, located here.
Ben Woollard 