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Hide formatting and other tracked changes selectively in Word

When you're reviewing a document with tracked changes (or editing a document yourself), do you ever get distracted by all of the formatting notes?

Formatting change details

There's an easy way to turn them off and leave all of the other tracked changes visible, and it works in both Word 2007 and Word 2010. Just go to the Review tab, click Show Markup and uncheck Formatting:

Show Markup selections

Likewise, you can hide Comments, Ink, Insertions, and Deletions or remove the Markup Area Highlight shading behind where comments and other change notes appear. You can also hide notes from a specific reviewer, though the changes they made will remain unless you reject them.

Suzanne

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 26, 2010
    I have Word 2007, which looks exactly like your screen shots. When I untick "Formatting", the wide margin at the right disappears. That's fine. However, the change is not persistent. After a few minutes, the wide margin re-appears. Saving the document after unchecking "Formatting" does not help.

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2010
    In prior versions of Word (eg, 2003), you could set up a button to toggle between show/hide markup.  I can't find a way to do this in 2010 with a single button click.  What am I missing--or did MSFT drop the ball.  We use this button all the time.

  • Anonymous
    December 06, 2010
    Thanks for the tip. But is there a way to turn some of these markup items, e.g. formatting, permanently? I never want to review formatting changes but I'm finding that everytime I open a document with markup I have to uncheck formatting each time. Word deliberatly forgets my preference.

  • Anonymous
    January 11, 2012
    Is there a way to persist these changes?  When I turn off Formatting in this list it reappears whenever I turn tracked changes off and back on again...

  • Anonymous
    January 17, 2012
    Thank you! I have been trying to work out how to do this for so long. Although now I feel silly since it was so easy, but that's the way it is for most things in Word!

  • Anonymous
    January 26, 2012
    Suzanne's solution is good for only that session.  Even if I save the marked up file as a final version the markup side section will reappear! SOLUTION: Right click the "Formatted: : . . . . ." then click "reject format change", Voila!

  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2012
    Is there a way to make this sticky/permanent?  Its annoying to have to constantly go through the menus to re-hide the formatting notes every time a document is opened.  Would be nice to be able to hide it and have it stay hidden for the duration that Office 2007 is running.

  • Anonymous
    July 19, 2012
    Is there a way to make this action 'sticky'? I rarely want to see formatting because it messes up the RH border of the display so that it is no longer WYSIWYG. But every time I toggle from Final to Final Show Markup, or turn tracking on, the formatting balloons reappear.

  • Anonymous
    February 15, 2013
    THANK YOU!  This is super helpful and even Microsoft's support site didn't have this solution!!

  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2013
    So... I gather there's no way to 'permanently' uncheck that 'formatting' option in the 'Show Markup' list?  I agree with the consensus: It's tedious to have that right-hand gutter as an unavoidable default that I frequently have to uncheck.

  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2013
    This works when viewing on the screen, however even if I uncheck "formatting" when I go to print the document, all the formatting seems to turn itself back on and it all prints, even though it does not show up in print preview.  This seems like a bug...

  • Anonymous
    May 04, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 08, 2013
    The comment has been removed