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Multiple Document Users
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It is not unusual for people to work together in "teams" in today's
business environment. Instead of a single person being responsible for
a given task, a group of people may be charged with its successful
completion. This many mean that you have a document for which multiple
people are responsible. With some Office programs (such as Excel),
multiple users can share the same document and work on it at the same
time.
Word does not allow multiple people to use the same Word document at
the same time, since the edits by each individual could create havoc
with the final document. Instead, Word provides several tools that you
can use in a multi-user environment to make collaborating of a
document just a bit easier.
The first such tool is referred to as Track Changes. This tool allows
two different approaches to document editing, each with plusses and
minuses. The first approach assumes a serial progression of the
document. For instances, you have a single copy of the document, and
it makes its way through each member of your team. With Track Changes
turned on, each person's edits are noted and can be easily reviewed by
the person ultimately responsible for the document. That person--the
one with whom the document originally started and will eventually
end--uses the Accept or Reject Changes feature to review each change
and judge whether it should be accepted or not.
(A side note is in order here. When discussing Track Changes, that is
the name provided to the feature in Word 97 and Word 2000. If you are
using an earlier version of Word, the same feature is known as
Revision Marks. Regardless of the name, the feature operates in the
same manner across Word versions.)
The other approach to using the Track Changes tool is to give each
member of your team a copy of the document. They are free to make
changes, and they don't have to do so with Track Changes turned on.
Then, the person responsible for producing the final document gathers
each of the modified documents and "merges" them using the Compare
Documents feature. (Again, this feature is part of the overall Track
Changes part of Word.) Compare Documents combines two documents,
resulting in a document that shows the differences between the two
original documents. Once the merging process is done, with each of the
team members' documents, then the responsible person can again use the
Accept or Reject Changes feature to review each change and determine
its acceptability.
If you decide to utilize the Track Changes feature of Word, and
particularly if you decide to use the first approach, you may want to
use the Comments feature to allow team members to insert their
comments into the document. These comments shouldn't reflect the
actual changes to the document (which should be done to the document
itself with Track Changes turned on), but can contain general comments
on why certain changes were made or just general comments on document
development. In effect, the Comments feature becomes a way for the
team members to provide input to the development process. The team
member ultimately responsible for the document can then read the
comments and resolve any issues contained therein.
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> Meir Feinberg
> CTO
> MediaOne Information Technologies Ltd.
>mailto:meir -at- mediaoneit -dot- net
Tel: +972 9 8853110 ext. 81
> WebSite: http://www.mediaoneit.net
>
>
>
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