This was originally posted as a Word 2007 question, but the issue and the solution are common to other versions of Word. Whenever I open an existing document in Word 2007 (on Windows XP), word turns on track changes, and changes the display mode to 'Final' (that is, not 'Final Showing Markup' - so I often don't even notice track changes is on if I don't remember to pay attention. This happens for ALL existing documents, and doesn't happen for new documents. I can't find any option in the configuration that would control this behavior. I would like to restore the original/default behavior where documents are opening with Track Changes off, and in 'Final showing markup' display. Steps to Reproduce.
To assign a specific color to your own tracked changes, on the Word menu, click Preferences, and then under Output and Sharing, click Track Changes. In the Color boxes, select the color that you want. You have to use Print Layout view in Word 2011 for Mac for this to work, so if you’re not already in Print Layout view, click the Print Layout view button at the lower-left corner of the document window to switch to it.
Open Word 2007. Create a new document. Verify that track changes is off. Save the document and close Word. Open the document (either directly or through Word).
Track changes is now on. : Markup text may reappear when you open or when you save a document of Word 2007 When you open or save a Microsoft Word document, markup text (comments, ink annotations, insertions and deletions, and formatting changes) that you turned off in the document the last time that you saved it may appear again. To change this behavior and to retain the Reviewing options as you did in Word 2002, follow these steps, as appropriate for the version of Word that you are running.
Microsoft Office Word 2007. Start Word 2007, and then open the Word 2007 document. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options.
In the left pane, click Trust Center, and then click Trust Center Settings. In the left pane, click Privacy Options, and then click to clear the Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving check box. Click OK two times. Make a change to the document.
For example, type a space, and then delete the space. Then, save the document. Note If you do not perform step 6 and make a change to the document, the change that you made to the Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving option may not take effect the next time that you open the document. Note If you save the file with the Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving option cleared, another user will see the markup text immediately when he or she opens the document. The other user must also clear the Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving option. This is because when you open a document that contains tracked changes, the document appears in the Final Showing Markup view to indicate that the document contains tracked changes. This behavior is by default.
I don’t know what’s changed, but in the past, when I wanted to see revisions and changes to a document in Microsoft Word on my Mac it showed me what was inserted and deleted. Now, however, it has zillions of little balloons on the side of the document. What the heck? How do I change Microsoft Word so revision tracking shows up the way I prefer?
As someone who works with a lot of different documents, I’m with you in preferring the “old style” revision display in Microsoft Word for Mac. A red line through a word to show it was deleted, the word in blue to show it was added, it was all easy and made sense. This is a Microsoft product, however, so it should be no surprise that there’s a way to tweak and customize it to what you prefer rather than just being stuck with the newest, fancy way to show revisions and tweaks to your document. To start out, here’s what the newer, modern revision tracking looks like in Microsoft Word for Mac: Yeah, I’m not a big fan of this either. To change it, go to “Preferences”, which you can find under the “Word” menu: Open it up and you get all sorts of pretty little icons, including the one we seek: Click on “Track Changes” and about 2/3 of the way down you’ll see a section labeled “Balloons”: Simply uncheck these two checkboxes, click “OK” to save the changes, and your edits will be in the classic style: There’s a lot of stuff you can tweak and customize with this version of Microsoft Word, so while you’re looking at your Preferences, make sure it’s all configured as you desire too.
(SORRY about that email that just went off prematurely.) Here’s my followup question: MS Word gives the editor the option of turning off the insertion/deletion bubbles but KEEPING the comment bubbles. This is how I comment on my students’ papers. I explain in the bubbles. But I don’t want the margins to be crowded out with the noise of suggested deletions & insertions. Those I want to show up “the old-fashioned way.” IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE with a Mac? Can I have marginal bubbles just for comments? If so, HOW??????
I sure hope this is possible, or I’m going to have to go back to my PC.