Word "track changes" behaving strangely

Joni Ljungqvist 61 Reputation points
2022-10-19T07:09:45.707+00:00

Hi,

I'm not quite sure how to describe this but the "track changes" function behaves differently between some documents. Where as it usually (and should?) track my changes and keep my own changes in red, in some documents after some time (less than a minute), the text turns blue as if someone else had written it. When trying to remove that text, it will strikethrough instead of simply removing the text.

It seems to be something in the document causing this, has anyone noticed this behaviour before?

I've attached two examples, one where it's not working and the text will go blue and adding strikethrough when I try to remove the text (although I just wrote it myself a few seconds prior):
251874-pic1.png

And here's an example where it does work and the change remains in red, and if I remove it, it just gets removed:

251838-pic2.png

Word Management
Word Management
Word: A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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Accepted answer
  1. Stefan Blom 2,121 Reputation points MVP
    2022-10-21T10:29:34.113+00:00

    When the Track Changes color changes, the cause is usually that you have instructed Word to choose colors "By author" and, for some reason, Word thinks that you have added a second user. Look at the list of users at Review tab > Tracking group > Show Markup > Specific People to find out if Word thinks that more than one person is editing the document.

    To prevent this from happening, click File > Options > General and select the check mark next to "Always use these values regardless of sign-in to Office."

    253004-image.png


1 additional answer

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  1. Ceasar Chen_MSFT 4,391 Reputation points
    2022-10-20T01:46:37.107+00:00

    Hi, @Joni Ljungqvist
    You can change the color of strikethrough and inserted content to red in Review-Tracking (click on the bottom right corner of the toolbar) - Advanced Options.
    252214-image.png


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