An inside baseball question for heavy Word users

March 10, 2023 7:31 PM

I was just forced to update Word for Mac after holding out, and now the dreaded Modern Comments and associated (trash) editing tools have been imposed upon me. I am a heavy, heavy Word user -- I'm a book editor -- and this is destroying my productivity and messing up my clients' docs. Anybody know or have a link to best practices and/or ways to disable these tools for those of us whose Track Changes skills are an essential part of our work?

This is kinda an IYKYK issue -- so I'm not going to go in depth in describing my despair/fear/annoyance. I edit literally millions of words per year, and my livelihood relies on my ability to use Word exactly as I need to. I know there must be a few of you out there who are like me, and I hope you've already been through this and figured out the solutions.

Thanks in advance, and also please do not suggest anything akin to "use some other program" because that is a total nonstarter. I work in publishing in the US; we use Word, full stop.

posted by BlahLaLa to Technology (13 answers total)

Get an old Intel Mac and use Office for Mac 2011?
posted by sindark at 7:50 PM on March 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I share your loathing of modern comments! In my Windows version of Word, I go to File | Options | General. In the first section of that screen, I can remove the check from "Enable modern comments". Is that available to you?
posted by maudlin at 7:58 PM on March 10, 2023

Response by poster: I did use Word for Mac '11 up until probably 2 years ago. It basically worked until it didn't, and as this is the primary tool for my profession, I can't endlessly rely on an outdated program, alas.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:59 PM on March 10, 2023

Best answer: On the Mac version it's under Word -> Preferences -> General -> Enable modern comments. Disabling modern comments is still an option as of the latest version of Word for Mac (16.70, February 14, 2013), although Microsoft has indicated that the legacy comment system will eventually be fully removed.
posted by jedicus at 8:01 PM on March 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Okay, I've disabled Modern Comments. I'm having problems in terms of viewing the doc: Why are my client's comments grayed out? They're there, but not really there.
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:04 PM on March 10, 2023

That sounds like the comments have been (permanently? temporarily?) resolved, but Word isn't drawing the Reopen button at the lower right of the comment balloon. You may need to restart Word. (I got a bastardized version of modern comments immediately after turning them off, but all was well after a restart.)
posted by maudlin at 8:10 PM on March 10, 2023

Best answer: If you’re on facebook, ask to join the editing groups Editors’ Association of Earth and Editors’ Backroom. These groups are linked and I think you join them together to get all the benefits. It’s a giant group of professional editors with content questions, tech questions, style questions etc
posted by toodleydoodley at 8:18 PM on March 10, 2023

Best answer: I had the same horror show happen to me a few weeks ago and I agree, it destroyed my writing/ editing productivity until I figured out how to turn it off. I use Word for Mac 2019, for what it's worth, and will not switch to 365. I have turned off Office updates solely for this reason and will keep them turned off as long as I can. It's really frustrating how track changes, a perfectly good, usable tool, has been eviscerated.
posted by tavegyl at 8:24 PM on March 10, 2023

I work in publishing in the US; we use Word, full stop.

The upgrade treadmill is a bastard of a thing. If you're relying heavily on a feature that your sole supplier of editing software has begun to deprecate, now would be a good time to work out how to set yourself up with an editing environment that isn't subject to the treadmill.

This is where virtual machines come in handy - if you set yourself up soon with a VM running the latest OS version that supports the latest workable version of your preferred tools, you can keep that environment available forever regardless of what the OS and application vendors decide is in their best interests.

Of course, the chance that the rest of your professional network will also be willing to do anything beyond what's rock-bottom easiest is pretty small, so there will come a time when instead of feeling like the rest of the world is forcing you to use Word and nothing else, you'll be feeling like the rest of the world is forcing you to use the version with broken change tracking and nothing else. Which makes now a good time to start giving your more tech-aware clients a heads-up, and begin a careful and collaborative search for alternative workflows that rely on tools and data formats less subject to vendor lock-in.
posted by flabdablet at 12:47 AM on March 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

Following this closely; I’ll be experimenting with any advice tat shows up here later today
posted by mr_roboto at 7:42 AM on March 11, 2023

Best answer: I feel your pain. Why, oh why, why was this change made? What's the reasoning behind it and so many toss-the-baby-out-with-the-bath-water changes? Do tech people ever think to consult with their users before inflicting their nightmare "upgrades" on us? I'm going through this nightmare as well after decades of Track Changes, which was perfectly serviceable in academia and publishing. What if we had to learn how to drive all over again every time we bought a new car? Thanks to all the practical suggestions on the green.
posted by Elsie at 8:29 AM on March 11, 2023 [8 favorites]

It may say something about word processors being feature-complete that I have Office for Mac 2011 on my oldish Intel Mac and a 365 subscription from my school on an Apple silicon Mac and I literally cannot name or identify any feature in the new version which I have noticed isn't in the old one.
posted by sindark at 10:55 PM on March 11, 2023

Best answer: There are two good old-fashioned email lists out there that I see this discussed on frequently (I too am dreading encountering this in my copyediting work), if you don’t want to do Facebook. Copyediting-L is a listserv out of Indiana university full of editors who know tons of useful stuff, and Mac Edit is a google group that’s been helpful to read for me dealing with specific Mac oriented Word issues. I hope you get a resolution to this issue!
posted by kitten kaboodle at 11:50 AM on March 12, 2023 [3 favorites]