How to Set the Review Options in Microsoft Word

Dear Apple Tech Talk:

I recently switched from a Windows PC to a Mac which I use for both personal use and work. I usually receive documents that have been marked up by others, and I need to add my own changes to it. When I used my old PC, I would receive changes in one color and when I added changes, they would be in another color. On my Mac, all of the changes appear in the same color so it gets difficult to know who made what changes. Does Microsoft Word for Mac not provide that option?

Thanks for your letter and welcome to the world of Mac. The Apple version of Microsoft Office is almost identical to the one you used on a PC. While some people will say the Mac version doesn’t have all of the features on the Windows version, we believe that most people will never need to use some of those very unusual features.

In your case, we suspect that changing a simple setting will fix your problem.

To start, make sure Microsoft Office is open on your Mac. On the top Menu bar, click on “Word”, and then click on Preferences. That will open the Word Preferences dialog box.

In the “Output and Sharing” section, you will see an option for Track Changes. Click on that to open the Track Changes dialog box.

We suspect your Markup section will look something like the box above and that the Insertions, Deletions, and Formatting items will be set to a specific color.

This setting makes all markups the selected color, regardless of who made the change. Since each of those selections offer a variety of colors, some people make insertions one color and deletions another color. But again, those actions will all be the same color regardless of who made the change.

But you want each person’s changes to be in a different color. To accomplish that, just click the dropdown arrow for each option and select By Author, as shown in the screen shot below.

That’s all there is to it. Now, when you mark up a document, your edits will be in a different color from another person’s edits.

If you liked this article, please consider sharing it with your friends and leaving a comment below. Also, don’t forget to “Like” us on Facebook, “Follow Us” on Twitter and add the Apple Tech Talk channel to your Apple News app.

And if you haven’t subscribed to Apple Tech Talk, now would be a great time to do it so. Just scroll down to the form below and enter your name and email address. Then you’ll receive a notification whenever we post new articles. Don’t worry, we never sell or share your information. While you’re at it, check out our YouTube channel (here) where you will find video on interesting products any Apple enthusiast would love.

Apple Tech Talker