Tracked Changes not recognizing that I am the same user before and after a Save

I've continued watching for answers to this issue, and the best answer I've seen so far is the following, from Allen Wyatt at wordribbon.tips.net:

"This problem has been reported by other Word users, as well. In all cases it seems that the problem is related to working with Word 2003 documents in a later version of Word. The problem is most likely rooted in how later versions of Word interpret and work with some obscure setting in the older Word 2003 file format."

http://wordribbon.tips.net/T009977\_Track\_Changes\_Thinks\_the\_Editor\_Has\_Changed.html

So it appears to be a bug in versions of Word after 2003, and there appears to be no prospect that Microsoft will fix it. After seeing this I began watching my Word versions closely, and it does appear to me that the problem arises only in documents that originated long ago in Word 2003.

The most reliable fix therefore is to re-create the document natively in our current version of Word. This is tricky, since just Saving As into the current version does not appear to solve the problem reliably. Nor does File | Info | Convert. And I'm not sure that copying and pasting the entire document into a new native current-version-Word document will necessarily solve the problem either, because copy-and-paste includes styles, and maybe other document metadata, and that might be exactly where the bug is hiding. We may have to copy and paste text only, removing all formatting, then re-do the formatting manually.

BTW, if you want to know whether your document will have this problem or not, there's an easy way to tell. Go to Review | Track Changes | Change Tracking Options and look at the checkboxes for "Moves" and "Formatting". If either of them is grayed out, then the problem will show up. If both are available, then *probably* this problem will not arise.

Well, I tried going into File | Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings | Macro Settings, to make the suggested changes, but my computer was already set on "Disable all macros with notification", so my problem isn't solved.  This is a major problem with all the redlining we do.  Frustrated.  Thanks everyone for your comments and assistance!

I solved the problem. But the solution makes no sense to me.

The only thing I did was to go into File | Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings | Macro Settings, and change the radio button from "Enable all macros" to "Disable all macros with notification".

Then the Change Tracking feature no longer forgot that I was the same person before and after a Save.

Sounds like this would point to a macro of some kind as having caused the problem, right? But here's why I'm still confused: I then went back into that setting and changed the radio button back to "Enable all macros". And the Change Tracking feature still works properly. It still remembers that I'm the same person before and after a Save. And it remained fixed even after a reboot of my computer.

Additionally, while I had the radio button set to "Disable all macros with notification", I couldn't discern any difference in the way Word operated. I did not receive any notifications of a macro being disabled, even in response to clicking Save.

So I'm not complaining, since my problem seems to be solved. But I'm curious if this experience triggers any thoughts about what the actual problem might have been.

If the problem is truly a macro, I should mention that we use a document manager called Worldox GX3, which does intercept Saves and SaveAs's in Word in order to provide its own document profiling dialog. And if I look in Word | Developer | Macros, there is in fact a macro called "commonFileSaveAs", though I don't believe that macro originated from Worldox because my change tracking problem occurred even while the Worldox Addin was not installed (actually deleted from the Word Startup folder, not merely disabled) and nothing was intercepting Saves and SaveAs's.

In case it matters, File | Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings | Privacy Options |Store random number... is still checked.

And File | Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings | Privacy Options | "Remove personal information from file properties on save" remains grayed out and unchecked.

So I'm still curious.

Thank you

In experimenting further, I notice that the change tracking options also do not retain my choices to not track moves or format changes. It does seem to store these settings with the document, but if I open a new document then these settings revert to the default. My understanding was that they were supposed to be stored in the Word registry key and therefore apply to all documents, not just to the one document that I had open when I selected those settings.

If you are referring to "Track formatting" and "Track moves" in the Track Changes Options dialog box (Review | Track Changes | Change Tracking Options), note that these options are saved with an individual document (that is, they are not stored in the registry). To disable them for all future documents that you create, you have to modify your template.

Deselecting "Track formatting" and "Track moves" means that Word ignores format changes and moves for the particular document or template where you have made that modification.

Try going to File>Options>Trust Center>Trust Center Settings>Privacy Options and check the box for "Store random numbers to improve Combine accuracy"