Word 2016 Comment bubbles gone

Question

Word 2016 took away the comment balloons and colors. Now the deletions, formatting changes and comments all look the same (!!!) with no lines around them and no colors and I cannot quickly see my comments or my colleagues’ replies.  (Yes there is a little sliver of color on the left side but is is hard to see). How do I get Word 2016 comments and redlining functions to look like Word 2010? I want my comments to be in shaded colored bubbles with lines around them that are distinct and always there (not just when you mouse over them) and are clearly and visually different than edits. 

Background: I am being forced to "upgrade" from Office 2010 to Office 2016.  I redline and comment on documents all day long.   I cannot make sense of documents with inline editing, especially with the heavy redlining our office does, so showing edits in balloons on the right is critical for my job.  We also explain our edits using comments and replies to comments.  The edits will eventually be sent to outside parties but the comments may be deleted since some are internal and some are directed to the outside parties.  I must be able to quickly and visually see all the comments and distinguish between comments and edits and not mistakenly send comments to others.

Because of this issue and its impact on my ability to get my work done, I am refusing my organization's forced "upgrade" to Word 2016.  This is incredibly frustrating and I hope Microsoft has an answer.  I've tried to submit feedback to Microsoft about this but could not find a place to send this feedback. I don't think they actually want to hear it!

Answer 1

The "little sliver of color on the left side" is the red change bar that is displayed in Simple Markup view, which is the default. Click on that to show All Markup, which will display the balloons if you have opted to "Show Revisions in Balloons" as Charles shows. The balloons don't look the same as in Word 2010 (no color shading or outline), but they are on the right of the page. You can click on the (now black) change bar again to redisplay Simple Markup when you don't want to be distracted by the balloons.

Answer 2

Hi Robert,

Turn on viewing of balloons in your Track Changes on the Review Tab.

Show Markup > Balloons > Show Revisions in Balloons

I hope this information helps. Please let me know if you have any more questions or require further help.

Regards

Answer 3

If you still need it, here is the feedback site:

https://word.uservoice.com/forums/304924-word-f...

In Word 2016 you can give feedback directly from Word. It is the smiley face in the top right corner of the window.