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Tools: Solution to "Track changes" problem in Word 97
Subject:Tools: Solution to "Track changes" problem in Word 97 From:"Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 30 Jul 2001 11:25:35 -0400
About a week ago, I reported an unusual occurrence in which I went back to
edit some changes I'd made in a Word 97 document with "Track changes"
enabled. This was my second edit of a document I'd already edited, and when
I modified some of my previous edits, Word marked these new changes as if
someone else was doing the editing. For example, when you delete a letter
you inserted using track changes, Word should simply remove the letter
rather than marking it as a deletion given that the same person has made
both changes. When I hovered the cursor over the previous text, I noticed
that the author of the previous changes was listed as "unknown", even though
the "User information" (Tools-->Options-->Track changes) told me that it was
still indisputably me who had made these changes.
Baffling, annoying, and thoroughly inexplicable, until--on a hunch--I
retyped the exact same user information that was already in the options
dialog box, and saved the changes to my settings. Problem solved, at least
so far. All I can figure is that when Word crashed earlier in the week, it
somehow damaged the registry settings in which it stored the user
information and other preferences. (I imagine the same problem could arise
in Word 98 for the Mac, though the settings are stored elsewhere.)
So if Word starts acting weird in how it tracks changes, it might be
worthwhile opening the options dialog box and reselecting all the properties
related to tracking changes, then saving the result. Worth a try, leastwise,
and less unpleasant than the traditional "wave a dead chicken" approach to
troubleshooting Microsoft problems.
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
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