How to Stop Track Changes in Word

Wondering why your Word document is all weird, adding lines and boxes when you delete stuff, or typing things out in red underlined text? That's MS Word's 'Track Changes' feature.

But fear not, a quick fix is at hand. Skip to 1:55 for the quick answer on change tracking, how to turn it off with one button! Spoiler alert: It's not in the 'Tracking' section of the ribbon! In the video I also explain how you can use it, including accepting or rejecting changes.

Here's my associated blog on how to sort this:

CHAPTERS

0:00 - Intro and demo of problem
1:20 - Quick fix turn off track changes
2:20 - More info on track changes options
4:33 - Recap and outro

I hope you've found this helpful. Please like and subscribe for more handy content.

Kind Regards,
Adrian

[Dwavard]

Awesome - this advice prevented me from throwing my laptop out my 20 storey window ;-)

[leroyjenkins]

The track changes absolutely made me question why word is the standard for document work, you saved me with this video!!!

[VirgoMagna]

God bless you, I was beginning to scream from fury at Microsoft and in frustration at so many useless guides I came across until I found your video.

[dceueoh]

This was so helpful! Thank you...😊 Track changes are an absolute nightmare.

[rfroth]

Thank you so much! This has bedeviled me for quite some time. Many, many thanks!

[genericsuit]

Cheers for the helpful and concise guide. I was getting really frustrated after 30 times opening and closing Word, toggling random track-change settings and not fixing the issue.

[Miliregretz]

Thank you! I found this feautre so annoying but was scared to turn it off, as ist must be there for a reason. So good to hear its only for people who don't trust there collegues and i can safely turn it off

[Kumgll]

Yes indeed most annoying when you don't want it. Thanks Adrian. A bit of a Bristol accent in the background? The clever city that made Paul Dirac.

[JoekelsMusic]

Timely, am submitting a manuscript but had failed to remove track changes

[erinfield]

OK yes it goes away in Word, but then when you convert to Pdf, there are the tracked changes all over again. How do you get rid of them so they don't show up in Pdf?

[harolddunn]

It didn't work, it continues to track changes, change the font, no matter what I do it continues to do the same thing

[micheleweir]

thank you, thank you, thank you. That was the MOST annoying waste of my time for hours today. OMG - your video solved the issue. Let it be said I HATE microsoft for exactly this kind of reason and am going to start using Apple products - I hate that Microsoft is HORRIBLY non-intuitive and there's virtually not way to get tech support. YUCK - goodbye microsoft. Thank you so much for this video.