So, let’s say you’ve been the smart one in the office and you’ve sent your latest memo to a few people so they can look over it. Now you’ve got it back with all these changes; what do you do with them?

 

Well, we’ll start at the most logical place: the beginning. You should click to place your cursor at the very beginning of the document. Then, click the Show Next Change button () on the reviewing toolbar. That will highlight the next change (formatting, insertion, deletion, or comment) in the document.

 

Now that you know what has been changed, what do you do with it? Well, once you’ve decided whether you want to keep or remove the change, use the Accept Change button () or the Reject Change button () to perform that action. (You can also right-click on the changed text and choose one of those options.)

 

Each of these buttons has a drop-down menu; let’s go through each of the options in those menus.

 

Accept Changes	Accept Change	Accepts the current change
	Accept All Changes Shown	Accepts all changes shown in the document. (We’ll talk about hiding and showing changes in a moment.)
	Accept All Changes in Document	Accepts all changes in a document, whether they are visible or hidden.
Reject Changes	Reject Change/Delete Comment	Rejects this change or deletes the comment.
	Reject All Changes Shown	Rejects all changes shown in the document. (We’ll talk about hiding and showing changes in a moment.)
	Reject All Changes in Document	Rejects all changes in a document, whether they are visible or hidden.
	Delete All Comments Shown	Deletes all comments shown in the document.
	Delete All Comments in Document	Deletes all comments (visible and hidden) in the document.
	Delete All Ink Annotations in Document	Deletes all ink annotations in the document.

 

Once you accept a change, that text becomes part of your document and any markup (including vertical lines in the left margin) is removed. If you reject the change, the change and its associated markup is removed.

 

Once you have reached the end of changes in the document, Word will tell you that there are no more changes or comments. You should click the Next Change button until this happens to make sure you’ve addressed all of the changes and comments in the document.

 

Whether you’re the reviewer or the owner of the document, there are a few ways to change how you view your document. The first way is to use the View menu () on the Reviewing toolbar. This menu contains four options:

 

Final Showing Markup	Shows all comments and changes on top of the original document. Insertions are listed before deletions.
Final	Shows the document as if all comments and changes have been accepted.
Original Showing Markup	Shows all comments and changes on top of the original document. Deletions are listed before insertions.
Original	Shows the original document with all changes and comments hidden.

 

The important thing to remember about these choices is that they DO NOT remove any changes or comments. They may temporarily hide markup, but the markup is still there. As well, these changes will not affect reviewer settings, which we’ll get to in a moment.

 

The same thing applies to the Show menu. You can use this menu to control what markup elements are displayed in your document, but even if you hide a markup element it is still present in your document.

 

 

Let’s take a closer look at the Show menu. This menu is a bit different than others; you check items to show them and uncheck them to hide them. (For the first two options, Final and Original, checking one automatically unchecks the other.)

 

 

 

 

You can use these options to control what markup you see. For example, let’s say your assistant John told you that he added a really important part to your document. You can uncheck all items except Insertions and Deletions, and then uncheck all reviewers except for John. This will show you all of the insertions and deletions that John made. Don’t forget, though, to re-check all of the options before you “finish” your document!

 

Let’s take a closer look at the Balloon Options menu.

 

 

These options apply whether you’re in Normal or Print Layout View. You can choose to have balloons always on, never on, or only on for comments and formatting.