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Sylvia reports: <<When opening a MS Word 2003 file, if there were
track changes that affected the header and footer, they will still
remain even after accepting all changes and this, especially if there
are fields. I heard that this is a bug in Word 2003.>>
It's a bug/feature in all versions of Word: the revision tracking
feature is designed to let you accept or reject only the changes you
can actually see, thereby protecting you from inadvertently approving
or rejecting changes that you haven't actually seen. (This is a good
thing, believe it or not.) For example, in all versions, you can't
spellcheck or review tracked changes in text boxes or any other areas
that are invisible while you're working in Normal view. Fortunately,
the solution is easy: switch to layout/print view. Once you can see
the changes, you can approve them.
As for fields, you can set Word's preferences to update them
automatically, or you can update them manually before sending the
document for review.
<<Is there a way to disable the "final showing markups" and have only
the "final" document without the markups?>>
There's no easy way to "disable" it (though I imagine you could do
this via visual basic), and that's a good thing*. This sort of
interaction with the document should always be under the control of
the person who will be reviewing the edits, not just under the
editor's control. Why impose your preferences on them when you don't
have to?
* Why use track changes if you don't want someone else to see what
you've done? That's the whole purpose of that feature.
You can do two things that achieve much the same goal: First and most
obvious, in the "show what" menu in the Reviewing toolbar, switch
from "Final showing markup" to "Final". Unless the person who
receives the document knows how to change this setting, they probably
won't do it. If they do know how to make this change, then they also
know how to switch back and forth between showing and concealing
changes, as needed, and stopping them from doing so won't gain you
any friends.
Second, and less obvious, open the Tools menu and select "Protect
document". There are various options you can select in this dialog
that let you control what people will see when they open the document
and what they can do to the document. However, as I noted above,
overriding someone's choices in how to work with a document is rarely
a good strategy. If you really need to do that, it's more effective
to accept all changes in a temporary copy of the document and send
them that copy for review. Or for light editing, send them a PDF.
----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
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