Comments on: Hide my "Track Changes"

Question: Hide my "Track Changes"

roofus — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:37:06 -0800

How do I make previous revisions, "track changes" comments, and other marginalia disappear, and be unretrievable in Word?

I have to submit an application form as a Word document. It has had extensive revisions, and comments from both authors. I am concerned that after I send it off as a .doc file, the recipients will be able to switch "Track Changes" back on, and go through the whole file history. There must be an easy way to lock my file in its definitive version, but I can't obviously find it.

By: scody

scody — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:40:44 -0800

Can you accept all changes, then save the doc as a new file in its pristine state?

By: waywardgirl

waywardgirl — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:43:12 -0800

In Word 2007, if you hit the Office button and choose "Prepare" then "Inspect Document" to let the document inspector run, you will be given the option to remove all tracking from the document.

Or, if you are allowed to turn your document in in another format, you might want to save it as a PDF instead. I always do that ever since the day I accidentally turned in a resume with edits on it! So embarrassing!

By: jeb

jeb — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:45:26 -0800

Personally, I always print to PDF to avoid this. But there is a little metadata-removing utility you can download from microsoft.com that will strip everything. It is here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=144e54ed-d43e-42ca-bc7b-5446d34e5360&displaylang=en

By: roofus

roofus — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:01:29 -0800

I am stuck with Word 2004 for Mac.

After I accept all comments and changes, when "Final Showing Markup" is still selected, the changes made while "Track Changes" were clicked are still visible. I've stripped out all the author details, but the types, dates and times of changes are still visible when I hover over.

I'll see if my co-author is using Word 2007, and can remove tracking.

By: kenchie

kenchie — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:05:57 -0800

Select all then copy/paste into a new document?

By: misanthropicsarah

misanthropicsarah — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:13:10 -0800

i have office 2007 and i'm sitting at home doing laundry. shoot me the file if you want to and i'll strip out all the changes for you with inspect document and send it back to you. email's in profile.

By: waywardgirl

waywardgirl — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:14:44 -0800

If you select all and paste into a new document, the tracking will be pasted as well.

But, perhaps you could select all and paste into Notepad (or whatever Mac's version of Notepad is) and make it into a text file. Then copy and paste that into a new Word document. You'll have to re-format the font and all, but it should get rid of the tracking.

By: O9scar

O9scar — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:53:00 -0800

Here's how:

1.) Within Word, go to Preferences>Security
2.) Select "Remove personally identifiable information from the file on save"
3.) Select "Warn before printing, saving or sending a document
that contains tracked changes or comments"

Taken from here.

It might work to save it as rtf too.

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:28:01 -0800

Copy paste into notepad
Copy paste into new Word doc

Unfortunately this will strip all formatting. Fortunately, this will strip everything else too.

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:29:05 -0800

oops, should have read more carefully, sorry waywardgirl.

By: notyou

notyou — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:33:23 -0800

Saving as an .rtf should work, too, while preserving most -- usually all -- formatting.

By: benzenedream

benzenedream — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:04:41 -0800

There is a commercial program called Workshare that will strip docs and warn about sending out docs with metadata attached. It is rather pricey, as its major clients are legal firms. I believe it is PC-only though.

By: b33j

b33j — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:07:05 -0800

After you accept all changes, you could protext the document (Tools>Protect Document) which makes editing (and therefore turning of tracked changes) impossible. There's options for password protecting in there.

By: b33j

b33j — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:07:51 -0800

That is to say, you should choose the "No changes (Read Only)" version of editing restrictions.

By: b33j

b33j — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:19:21 -0800

...After accepting all changes and deleting comments.

By: Mike1024

Mike1024 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:21:07 -0800

If you ask the NSA (704kb PDF), the thing to do is to select all, copy, and paste into a new document, then export to PDF.

By: O9scar

O9scar — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:27:29 -0800

Okay, so I fired up Word 2004 and when I tried the above trick it still kept the edits, but removed the author from them. When I accepted the changes it did remove all traces of editing, so I'm not sure why that didn't work for you.

On a whim I decided to try opening a tracked doc in Textedit. I added and removed a space, then saved it again. When I opened that one in Word, it came up clean. So there's another way to scrub your file.

By: Arthur Dent

Arthur Dent — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:34:59 -0800

Seconding save as rtf.
RTF is a document format that preserves formatting, and does not have codes for any of the other fancy stuff like change tracking and author information.

By: roofus

roofus — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:11:26 -0800

My colleague accepted all changes in Word 2007, and now they are gone. Thanks everyone!