You can track changes made to your document in Microsoft Office programs such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This allows you to identify who made the changes and at what time. Go to the Review tab to enable Track Changes in Word and Excel. However, there is no dedicated Track Changes tool in PowerPoint. But don’t worry; there are alternate ways to track changes in PowerPoint.
How to Track Changes in Word
- Open the Word document in which you want to track the changes.
- Click the Review tab and the Track Changes button in the Tracking group to enable it.
- Click the down arrow in the Track Changes button to track change options like For Everyone, Just Mine, and Lock Tracking.
- Once you have enabled Track Changes, you can start editing the content on Word. All the changes you make will be marked in red, and a white vertical line will appear on the left.
- If you do not want to see the red markings, click the vertical white line, which will turn red. The red markings in the article will disappear, and the changes you made will be shown.
How to Track Changes in Excel
In Excel, you can mark changes by enabling the Show Changes option.
- Open the Excel sheet on which you want to make changes, click the Review tab, and click the Show Changes button to enable it.
- Once you enable it, you can start making changes to your Excel sheet, and you can view the changes made on the right panel under the heading Changes.
- Once you close and reopen the Excel sheet to which you made the changes, click the Show Changes button in the Review tab to view the changes made.
How to Track Changes in PowerPoint
As PowerPoint does not have a direct button to track changes, you can compare presentations or multiple versions of a presentation using PowerPoint’s Show Changes feature.
- Start by saving a copy of the original presentation.
- You should change the copy of the original presentation you made because you will be comparing the original version with the edited one.
Note: Keep a copy of the presentation after editing, as this presentation has changed.
- Open the original PowerPoint presentation, click the Review tab, and click the Compare button.
- In the new window that opens, choose the edited presentation and click the Merge button to compare it with the original one.
- Once the presentations are merged, a Revisions pane will appear on the right side of the PowerPoint window. This page details the differences between the original and modified files.
- To approve or reject modifications, check or uncheck the box next to each item in the changelog. This will allow you to see which changes were made and by whom. You may also choose whether to keep the original text.
Conclusion
Tracking changes is a valuable feature in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You can easily follow comments and changes in Word and PowerPoint. Excel allows users to mark changes and share worksheets. Thanks to these features, teams can work together efficiently, guaranteeing that all ideas are heard and no modifications are missed. Also, make sure you save different versions in PowerPoint for comparison.
