tracking changes in Excel

Question

I am trying to track changes in a work book.  I have used the track changes on the excel menu but after you close the spreadsheet and reopen it the changes are not hightlighted.  I need the changes to stay highlihgted until a designated person acepts them. 

ie: file is on a server and many people review it

I change the cell L9 from 1234 to 5678 I save the file and it highlights blue (using the track changes from the excel menu).  My co worker opens the file on the server and can not see the highlighted "changed" cell.  Is there a way for it to stay highlighted so until I go back in and save it again?  In other words I want the changes to stay highlighted until I make new changes and the old changes automaticly go away when I save the new changes.  I hope this makes sense.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you in advance.......

Eric

Answer 1

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

Are doing any formatting changes to the document?

If yes, then such as formatting changes, are not tracked.

To view all changes that have been tracked, select the When check box, click All in the When list, and then clear the Who and Where check boxes.

You may refer to this link which describes in detail about the track changes feature in Excel 2010:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/track-changes-in-a-shared-workbook-HP010342961.aspx#BM4

If you need any further assistance, you may also post the question in this link for more help:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/excel/threads

Hope this helps.

Thank you.

Answer 2

The information that is provided doesn't fully help.  Yes, it helps to show you how to turn it on and use this function, but the bottom line is that it doesn't display the content changes once you or anyone else working on the file reopens it.

I have several Excel files that I'm making content changes only and no formatting changes.  These content changes no longer appear when another person reopens that file.  They then have to select Track Changes>Highlight Changes> and then clear the boxes under "Highlight which changes" every time to see the changes being made by various people in the shared workbook.

The end user shouldn't have to keep going into Track Changes>Highlight Changes> to clearing the boxes under "Highlight which changes" to see all the content changes being made.  When anyone reopens the file that has the Track Changes while editing selected, these changes should already be displayed on the screen just like in MS Word 2010.

Is there a solution to currently deal with this problem?  Will there be a bug / code fix for this within Excel?  Or should I start to look up code to create in VBA to do this very important task?

Thanks,

Char

Senior QA Documentation Control Specialist

Answer 3

The changes are saved in the metadata, but each new reviewer has to choose what changes to show and whether they will show on a history sheet or not (using Track changes | Highlight Changes options).

It is not very user-friendly, since the defaults are to only show the current user's changes since the last save and not put those changes on a new sheet, but the tool does work if all reviewers know that they will have to make their display choices each time.

Here is a tip if you are testing this with only one person - change your user name each time you open the book to make more changes (File | Options | General).  That way you can see how the changes will display on the history page (which is really the only way to see the whole editing process).

Answer 4

After reading several articles on the Microsoft web site and a few postings I have concluded that this feature does not work as is stated in the article link mentioned above.

When tips such as storing files on a server are not mentioned end users have no way of fixing the problem. 

Open a new Excel

Review tab

Track Changes

Check all boxes All, Everyone, $A$1:$F$19 & Highlight changes on screen.

** List changes on a new speadsheet is grayed out (It appears when the 1st person edits)

Save As xxx.xlsx

Open xxx.xlsx

Make changes to cell B1

Save & CLose

Open xxx.xlsx

No highlighted change appears

Review > Track changes again, check box "List changes on a new sheet"

Save

No history sheet stays with the workbook

In short what is the point of tracking changes when you can't really track them.

Answer 5

I found that you have to clear the When, Who and Where checkboxes to see changes made before you opened the document.

But the setting doesn't stick, so each reviewer has to clear those boxes each time they open the document.