To track changes in Word, go to the Review tab and click Track Changes, or press Ctrl+Shift+E. From that point, every insertion and deletion is recorded and visibly marked — deletions as strikethrough text, insertions as underlined colored text — rather than silently applied. Turning Track Changes off only stops recording new edits; it does not remove or finalize changes already tracked, which still need to be individually Accepted or Rejected to actually resolve.
What Track Changes actually does
Once enabled, every deletion shows as strikethrough text rather than disappearing — the original text stays visible but marked as removed, pending a final decision.
Every insertion shows as underlined text, typically in a distinct color, marking it as newly added rather than blending invisibly into the existing content.
Turning Track Changes off is not the same as removing tracked changes — this is the single most important thing to understand about the feature. The toggle only controls whether new edits get recorded going forward; anything already marked up remains exactly as marked, fully visible with strikethrough and underlines, until each change is individually resolved.
Multiple reviewers editing the same document can each be automatically color-coded differently by Word, making it possible to see at a glance which specific person made which specific edit when several people have reviewed the same document.
The only way to genuinely finalize a document’s tracked changes — removing the markup entirely, not just hiding it visually — is to Accept or Reject every single tracked change. There’s no shortcut that bulk-removes markup without making that keep-or-discard decision for each one, though Accept All and Reject All commands do exist for handling many at once.
Turning on and reviewing Track Changes
Review tab, then Track Changes, or the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+E.
Edit the document normally — every insertion and deletion from this point is automatically recorded and visibly marked, with no additional action needed to log each individual edit.
Use the Next and Previous buttons in the Review tab to step through tracked changes one at a time, reviewing each in context rather than scanning the whole document manually.
Accept or Reject each change as you review it — Accept keeps the edit and removes its markup; Reject reverts to the original text and also removes the markup. Either way, this is what actually finalizes that specific change.
Accept All or Reject All
For finalizing many changes at once rather than reviewing each individually, Review › Accept (the dropdown arrow beneath the main button) offers “Accept All Changes”, and similarly Reject offers “Reject All Changes” — genuinely useful once a document has been reviewed and a final decision made about the overall set of edits, though it forgoes the chance to evaluate any individual change separately from the rest.
Changing how markup displays without changing the actual tracking
Review › Display for Review offers different ways to view a document with tracked changes, independent of whether those changes are still genuinely tracked underneath: All Markup (shows everything, the default), Simple Markup (shows a cleaner view with change indicators in the margin rather than inline), and No Markup (previews roughly how the document would look if every change were accepted, without actually accepting anything).
💡 Pro tip: No Markup view is purely a display preference — switching to it doesn’t accept or finalize anything underneath. The changes are still fully tracked and still need Accept or Reject eventually; No Markup just changes what you’re currently looking at.
Checking who made which change
Hover the cursor over any tracked change to see a tooltip showing which reviewer made it and when, useful on a document that’s been through several rounds of review by different people. Review › Show Markup also offers a way to filter the view down to changes from a specific reviewer only, hiding others temporarily to focus on one person’s edits.
A worked example: reviewing a contract from a colleague
Say a colleague sends a contract draft with Track Changes already on, containing both their own edits and several comments questioning specific clauses, and you need to review it, add your own edits, and send it back.
Leave Track Changes turned on so your own edits are recorded distinctly from theirs — Word automatically color-codes each reviewer separately, so your changes won’t be mistaken for the original author’s once the document has edits from two different people in it. Add your own comments where you have questions, using the same Comments feature (Review, New Comment) they used, rather than typing questions directly into the body text, which would itself become a tracked insertion rather than a clearly separated note.
Before sending it back, use Show Markup to filter the view to just your own changes, confirming they look correct and complete, then switch back to showing everyone’s changes together before saving, so the colleague sees the full combined picture when they reopen it rather than a filtered view that happened to be active when you saved.
Do not accept or reject the colleague’s own changes yourself unless specifically asked to — that’s typically their decision to make on their own edits, and finalizing someone else’s tracked changes without asking can come across as overstepping during a collaborative review, even if your intentions were simply to tidy up the document.
Track Changes and locked documents
Track Changes can be locked on so that anyone editing the document cannot turn it off themselves, useful when a document genuinely needs every edit tracked regardless of who’s making them, without relying on each individual editor remembering to keep it enabled. This is set through Review › Track Changes › Lock Tracking, optionally protected with a password so only someone who knows it can unlock and disable tracking again later.
Comparing two versions of a document
If Track Changes wasn’t turned on while two versions of a document diverged — one person edited a copy without tracking enabled, for instance — Word’s Compare feature (Review › Compare) can generate a third document showing the differences between any two files as if they’d been tracked changes all along, effectively reconstructing a tracked-changes view after the fact from two separate untracked versions rather than requiring tracking to have been active during the actual editing itself, which makes it a genuinely useful recovery option after the fact.
A quick reference
Reviewing someone else’s document: keep Track Changes on so your edits stay distinct from theirs, and avoid accepting or rejecting their changes without asking. Two versions diverged without tracking on: use Compare to reconstruct the differences after the fact rather than manually cross-checking both files by eye.
Making sure a shared document is genuinely clean
Old changes still visible after turning tracking off — this is expected, not a bug. They need individual Accept/Reject (or Accept All/Reject All) to actually finalize and remove.
Can’t tell who made a specific change — hover over it directly, or check Show Markup for reviewer-specific filtering.
A document sent externally still carries edit history — accept or reject everything and check Document Inspector (File › Info › Check for Issues › Inspect Document) before sharing, since this specifically checks for and can remove any residual tracked-changes data, comments, or other hidden metadata that might otherwise persist even after a visual check looks clean.
Comments cluttering the margin too — these are a genuinely separate feature from Track Changes, and need to be individually resolved or deleted on their own, independent of accepting or rejecting tracked text edits.
- ✓Understand that turning tracking off doesn’t remove existing tracked changes
- ✓Use Accept or Reject to genuinely finalize each change, not just hide the markup
- ✓Check Document Inspector before sharing a document externally
- ✓Hover over a change to see who made it and when
- ✓Resolve comments separately from tracked text edits — they’re different features
- ✕Assuming turning off Track Changes clears the document of existing markup
- ✕Sending a document externally without checking Document Inspector first
- ✕Confusing No Markup view with actually accepting the underlying changes
- ✕Forgetting comments need their own separate resolution, apart from tracked edits
- ✕Using Reject All without first reviewing whether every single change should genuinely be discarded
Frequently asked questions
How do I turn on Track Changes in Word?
Go to the Review tab and click Track Changes, or press Ctrl+Shift+E.
Does turning off Track Changes remove the tracked edits?
No. It only stops recording new edits. Existing tracked changes remain visible until individually Accepted or Rejected.
How do I finalize tracked changes in a document?
Use Accept or Reject on each change (or Accept All / Reject All), which is the only way to actually remove the tracked-changes markup.
How do I see who made a specific tracked change?
Hover over the change to see a tooltip with the reviewer’s name, or use Show Markup to filter by a specific person.
How do I make sure a document doesn’t secretly still have tracked changes before sending it?
Accept or reject everything, then run Document Inspector (File, Info, Check for Issues) to catch any residual tracked-change data before sharing.
What’s the difference between No Markup view and accepting changes?
No Markup is just a display preference showing how the document would look if changes were accepted — it doesn’t actually accept or finalize anything underneath.
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