Proofing electronically edited copy was made easier in Word 2003 (and later versions).

Simply displaying the tracked document in Final view instead of Final Showing Markup view gives you clean copy and the new word count. No need to cut and paste (which requires remembering to turn Track Changes on and off in the appropriate windows at the right time). If you prefer to proof on clean hard copy, select Document in the Print what: field of the Print dialog box, instead of Document Showing Markup. Both approaches eliminate the need to look at two documents side by side in order to copy corrections from a “clean” version to the marked-up version.

If you don’t need to keep track of formatting changes, you can also “clean up” the tracked view by displaying only the non-format changes: On the Reviewing toolbar, click Show and deselect Formatting. For an even cleaner screen, accept only the format changes: click Show, deselect everything but Formatting, then click Accept and choose Accept All Changes Shown. Go back to Show and reselect Insertions, Comments, etc. Text edits are visible again, and format changes no longer clutter the screen.

Lise Lingo uses Word to track edits in books for the Urban Land Institute, annual reports for the World Bank, and newsletters for AARP.

Posted in Technologies for publications and Web content