Use Review Feature to track changes in Word documents 2025

Microsoft Office Word offers a Review function, which allows you to track changes in a document. In this guide, we share how you can use the Review function or Track changes functionality in Microsoft Word.

Check functionality or track functionality of changes in Word

I broke the Review function functionality in several sections and explained how each of them is useful:

Activate tracking changes
Review and comments
Show changes
Accept and refuse changes
Finalize the document
Merging comments and changes into a single document
Compare two documents without tracking

Merge and compare documents are optional features and you need to use them in different scenarios.

1) Activate the tracking of changes

Before sending a document for review, be sure to activate Track changes functionality. Once activated, changes made by one of the reviewers will be saved with their name. These changes can be approved or rejected by another person. The feature also provides a way to lock tracking changes so that no one can turn it off. Let's learn both.

Make sure the document is ready for review.
Open the document, then go to Review section> click on Track changes, then click on Track changes menu again.
Once activated, you should notice that the button has a gray background.
Then click on Lock tracking and enter a password, confirm and click ok.
After that, tracking changes will be disabled for you or anyone else, unless it is disabled using the same password again.

Note: If you lose or forget your password, Microsoft will not be able to recover it for you. Be sure to write it down somewhere regarding the document.

2) Review and comments

After that, all changes to the document will be saved, no matter where the document is shared and edited. Here's how the changes will be saved:

Deletions are marked with a strikethrough
Additions are displayed with an underline
Each author gets their color for changes
Select a paragraph or a set of words and click on the comment button to add your comments

A red horizontal line is displayed next to the line or paragraph, which makes it easier to identify. Click on it and all changes and comments will be visible. In addition to that, you can continue customize colors by clicking on the arrow in the lower right corner of the Tracking section.

Note: Even if you turn off tracking, underlines and strikethroughs will be visible in the document.

3) See the modifications

Assuming that a document came back to you after review, you should find all of the changes and comments. Go to Review > followed > View for review.

Go to Review> track> switch from Simple markup at All markup
If you choose No markup, the document will only be displayed as final version
If you select Original, you can view the original document without any changes

4) Accept and refuse changes

If you agree with a difference, click Accept and move on, but if you don't like it, click Reject and move on to the next one. It will cancel the modification of the previous revision. You should see that the difference is marked with an underline. You also have the option of

Accept all changes to the document
Reject all changes to the document.

You also have the comments section, which can help you browse through all the comments. You can respond to comments, mark it as resolved when you made a change, or delete it.

5) Finalization of the document

When you know everything is done, follow these steps to remove all visible annotations and comments.

Delete all comments by clicking Comments> Delete> Delete all comments
Click Accept all changes and stop tracking
You may be asked to enter the password if tracking has been locked.

Done, the review functionality in the Office Word document is complete. However, there are two other features that we have added to the guide. They may be useful in a different scenario.

6) Merge comments and changes from different documents into one document

merge comments and changes

If you have given a document to be reviewed by multiple users, you can combine them into a single final document for review.

Open a blank Microsoft document and navigate to Review> Compare> Combine
Select two documents, the original on the left side and edited on the right.
Click OK and repeat for all documents until it is finished.

The changes made by the authors will be visible in different colors. If you want to filter by author, you can click View Markup> Specific People and delete the authors you don't need.

When doing so, be sure to use the Protection function to lock authors and configure editing restrictions. It is useful when a document is available on a shared location.

7) Compare two documents without tracking

Finally, if no tracking has been activated and changes have been made, you can use the comparison tool to find the differences.

Open a blank document, then go to Review > click on Compare button, then click on Compare again.
It will display a similar dialog where you can select the original document, the revised document, the name of the author, etc.
You can also choose to compare comments, headers, footers, tables, etc.

That concludes our guide on how you can use the review features to track, comment, compare in Microsoft Word. It is a powerful tool for businesses where documents are examined at different levels.

I hope the guide was easy to understand and follow.