Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I've been using computers since they were massive things that filled an entire building. I've been using word processors since the early 80's.

I bought a PC with XP and used that word processor until I updated to another with Vista about 4 years ago.

So why had I never heard of Tracking Changes until this morning when my new contract said I would either have to have it or learn how to use it?

So, I did some Google searches and found it was NOT a feature of the home version of MS Word but came with the office one. How do I get that when I can't afford to go out and by a Big Mac?

Voila!!! I keep reading stuff about Open Office and it popped up on the search. AND IT'S FREE!

So, I downloaded it and, sure enough, it has the Track Changes and Merge features. Just what I need.

Now, I sure hope there's lots of people out there who know how to use it for when I mess up.

Yay for free software!

And I've done a lot with Track Changes, as I'm sure many others here have. Ask away if you run into questions!

OpenOffice has a few quirks and bugs but it'll do as a substitute for Office. Some cross compatibility issues too. Track Changes is a workhorse for collaborative digital editing though. WordPerfect has a similar feature, called Document Compare, breaking it into Compare, Review, and Redline functions. A generic name for it is redline, which is one of Track Changes' functions. Whichever way around, Office doesn't export to or support other applications, though RTF is cross compatible.

WordPerfect and OpenOffice do export to and support Office file types. To test for successful export to Word and Office formats it's a good idea to download and run the latest Word and Excel viewers. PowerPoint too if slide presentations are part of one's working environment. Access database doesn't have a viewer application. However, WordPerfect's Paradox does import from and export to Access databases. Frankly, I prefer WordPerfect for features Office doesn't have, more importantly for its cheaper price and cross platform and cross application compatibility.

Haha, I have NO idea how to use track changes. I really should learn.

CV

CharleeVale wrote:Haha, I have NO idea how to use track changes. I really should learn.

CV

It sounds like it should be this complicated thing, but it really couldn't be easier. You click a button/menu item to turn it on - and then every change, whether it be inserted text, deleted text, formatting, whatever, is recorded. You can pick whether you want to see the final or original document, with or without changes shown. When you want to stop recording what changes were made, you click the button again. And then you can either leave the document as-is (recorded changes won't be shown when it's printed) or you can choose to 'accept' or 'reject' each change. Different users' changes are shown with different colours so you can keep track of who changed what.

Really, the hardest part is probably just finding the button.

Neat!
I found it under the Edit section. Will give it a try and see what happens.