Permanently Remove Track Changes from a Word 2007/2010 Document
With past versions of Word, it has been challenging to completely remove changes made to a document while Track Changes was enabled. This problem sometimes resulted in embarrassment when a final document was sent with a history of changes and revisions hidden in the document and unknown to the author.
Luckily, Word 2007 has resolved this problem. Before distributing a document, you can use Word’s Document Inspector to completely remove all comments and revisions.
To prepare a document for distribution:
- Click the Office button.
- Point to Prepare and select Inspect Document.
- Word will display the Inspect Document dialog box.
- Check the first option: Comments, Revisions, Versions and Annotation.
- Check any other options you want Word to inspect.
- Click the Inspect button. (Word will prompt you to save the document if there are unsaved changes.)
- Word will display the inspection results.
If any comments or revisions are discovered, you can permanently remove them by clicking the Remove All button in the Document Inspector dialog.
Comments: 9 Comments
Remove Track Changes Completely from a Word 2010 Document:
For Word 2010:
1. Open the Word 2010 document (with Track changes).
2. Highlight the entire Word document (or Click CTRL + A).
3. Click Review tab
4. Click the arrow under ‘Reject’
5. Click ‘Reject All changes in the Document’
6. Now Click ‘Show Mark Up’
7. Uncheck all the tab selected (one by one) i.e. First uncheck ‘Comments’, then again click on ‘Show Mark Up’ and uncheck ‘Ink’…. then again click on ‘Show Mark up’ and uncheck ‘Insertions and Deletions’ …. again click on Show Mark up’ and uncheck ‘Formatting’…. and so on…
8. Now click Save
9. Close the document and reopen.
10. This should solve your issue.
Hope above steps are useful to all.
Warm Regards,
Nitee
This is another approach. You might want to make sure you want to reject changes before step 5. Also, the technique of using the Document Inspector might be more thorough. Thanks though for your comments.
I tried to follow your instructions and Nitee’s above twice, but cannot turn off the tracked changes in a document. I have Microsoft 2010 and cannot find an “Office Button” to turn on the “Inspect Document” to even try your recommendations. Hope you can help. Thanks.
I tried to follow your instructions and Nitee’s above twice, but cannot turn off the tracked changes in a document. I have Microsoft 2010 and cannot find an “Office Button” to turn on the “Inspect Document” to even try your recommendations. Hope you can help. Thanks.
In 2010, the office button has been replaced by the FILE tab (a green tab on the Ribbon). To turn off Tracked changes, you select Review, then click the Track Changes icon. If it is turned on, it will be outlined in orange. CLick it once and that will turn it off. You will then have to ACCEPT or REJECT changes to get rid of the notations. YOu can use the FINAL: showing Markup icon to show the final document without tracked changes, but this is temporary.
For Word 2010: None of these suggestions will work if the receiving party has “make hidden mark up visible when opening or saving” chosen as the default. This default is found File/Options/Trust Center/Trust center settings/privacy options. Unfortunately at my company when they rolled out 2010 they made that a default, so no matter what is done to the docuemnt the receiving party would still see the mark ups. Yes even if it looks clean on your saved file, the other person will see it.
How do I turn off the changes function permanently? I never want to see this, ever. Word 2010. It is a most frustrating function and has ruined many files for me.
There is probably a registry hack somewhere, but it’s a permanent part of Word. Can’t you just ACCEPT ALL CHANGES and then turn it off? That should get you back your document in untracked format.
The first post is the ONLY way to remove all comment/edit trails permanently. Save your document with your changes. Then use the File (2010)/Office button (2007) -> Info -> Check for Issues -> Inspect Document steps listed at the top of this thread. Make sure to select “Remove All” in the Document Inspector results dialog box that comes up. It will not remove the edits you made, but will remove the “markups” that show the edits you made. Make sure to save the document again – and you will now have a “clean” file. All other methods listed here are only temporary and can be overridden by turning markups on. Hope that helps!