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Word Won't Accept Tracked Changes (Accept this Change & Accept All Changes Shown are Greyed Out) - Not PW Protected

Anonymous
2023-06-21T20:15:35+00:00

When we click on Accept and Move to Next or Accept All Changes, nothing happens. The options for Accept this Change and Accept All Changes Shown are greyed out. We can make further changes and accept them, but we can't accept the changes that are already in the document.

Help? I have reviewed other threads and not found a solution for this document. I did read that RMS (Rights Management Services) could have been applied by a previous user of this document, but we have no clue on how to find that out or if it's even a good path to go down.

Thank you.

[Moderator note: thread updated with operating system (Windows)]

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-06-23T20:08:00+00:00

    Rhoda & Stefan, we think we determined some form of the problem and we are "closing the case" now. The parts that looked like tracked changes (they were in red, underlined and there was a vertical line next to the paragraph) were not actually tracked changes. They were appearing to be regular text that was directly formatted as red and underlined. We could change that to black and not underlined. It was as if someone had manually added text and made it look like it was a tracked change, but we actually think it might have been done in some other program or possibly run through a scrubber software that altered the content (removed something).

    We suggested that our user make all the text into the color and format that they want (thereby accepting all the "changes"). The only remaining issue was that the vertical lines were still there to the left of the paragraphs, so we copied/pasted special (w/o formatting) into a new document and with some adjustments, that will probably work.

    Thanks for the assistance.

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  1. Stefan Blom 339.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2023-06-25T18:53:16+00:00

    Thanks for the follow-up.

    Indeed, ordinary edits that have been made to look like tracked changes can certainly cause confusion, but you will see that there are no tracked changes if you look in the Revisions pane (for example).

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-06-23T12:16:57+00:00

    Thanks for that. Yes, Windows. No restrictions were applied for editing. Still searching for a fix!

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-06-22T02:08:33+00:00

    Dear khirzelli,

    Good day! Thank you for posting to Microsoft Community. We are happy to help you.

    As per your description, it seems that you are having issue with Track change in MS Word, not accepting old changes, however, can make further changes and accept them.

    If the understanding above is right, we'd like to confirm if "All Markup" enabled on the Review tab? Which options have been defined in the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box? 

    Meanwhile, as you have mentioned that RMS (Rights Management Services) could have been applied by a previous user of this document, more resources need to be involved in to investigate further.

    Please check if you can turn off change tracking by click on the Review>Track Changes slider until it says OFF. Then click on the down-pointing arrowhead beside Review>Accept and choose Accept All Changes.

    If not, we'd recommend you provide "Full Control" for the user in the SharePoint document library permissions with the steps in Customize permissions for a SharePoint list or library - Microsoft Support to check the outcome.

    For your reference: Track Changes functionality is disabled when RMS is applied - Office | Microsoft Learn

    If the issue still persists, we do understand the inconvenience caused and apologize for it. We're afraid that more resources need to be involved in. In this situation, we sincerely recommend you contact your Microsoft 365 administrator, follow steps in this article to create a support ticket with Online Support. The support team over there has higher permission than us, they can remotely help check the situation on your side, involve more resource to collect logs and help you do troubleshoot. This would be a more efficient way in handling this case for you.

    For reference: How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin?

    Welcome to post back if any updates. We look forward to your reply.

    If the understanding above is not consistent with yours, you can also post back and point that.

    Your understanding and patience will be highly appreciated. We hope that you are keeping safe and well!

    Thanks for your cooperation.

    Sincerely，

    Rhoda | Microsoft Community Moderator

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-06-22T11:31:28+00:00

    Thank you for your quick and thorough reply.

    Yes, All Markup is selected and we have several selections made for formatting, comments, etc.

    In the Advanced Options, we have all tracking enabled (checked all those boxes); it is all set to By Author, and we have colors selected. Everything looks to be the default settings, actually.

    For turning Track Changes OFF, there is no slider. I should mention we are on Office 365? But we can click to turn it on or off and we still can’t accept all changes and the other options (for Accept this Change or Accept All Changes Shown) are still grayed out.

    I am not going to follow the RMS path yet (that was a long shot I found while searching for a solution online), but I will create a support ticket.

    I appreciate the help.

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