Article ID: 185483
Article Last Modified on 1/23/2007
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Word 97 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q185483
SYMPTOMS
When you compare editing revisions between an original document and its revised counterpart (on the Tools menu, point to Track Changes, and click Compare Documents), the layout of the document may change. For example, additional lines and page breaks may appear, and line wrapping may change.
For an example of this behavior, see the "More Information" section later in this article.
CAUSE
This behavior is by design of Microsoft Word.
When comparing documents, if revisions include deleted paragraph marks or manual line breaks, new lines may appear to indicate lines that were deleted. Word must display any paragraph marks that were deleted to accurately display the differences between the compared documents.
Also, the word immediately preceding the deleted paragraph mark or manual line break is listed as part of the revision, and therefore appears twice (as being deleted and then added back).
WORKAROUND
Although you cannot work around this behavior, you can quickly turn revision marks on and off. To do this, use either of the following methods.
Method 1: Create a Macro
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For additional information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
163435 VBA: Programming Resources for Visual Basic for Applications
173707 OFF97: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles
To quickly turn revision marks on and off, use the following sample Visual Basic for Applications macro:
Sub ToggleShowRevisions() ActiveDocument.ShowRevisions = Not ActiveDocument.ShowRevisions End Sub
You can also assign this macro to a toolbar or menu for quick access.
For more information about adding a command to a menu, click Contents And Index on the Help menu, click the Index tab in Word Help, type the following text
menus
and then double-click the selected text to go to the "Add a command or other item to a menu" topic. If you are unable to find the information you need, ask the Office Assistant.
Method 2: Use the Highlight Changes Command
To manually turn revision marks on and off, follow these steps:
- On the Tools menu point to Track Changes and click Highlight Changes.
- In the Highlight Changes dialog box, click to clear (uncheck) or select (check) the "Highlight changes on screen" check box.
MORE INFORMATION
The following sample text demonstrates this behavior.
denotes a paragraph mark.
Original Document (Document 1) - Before Revisions
More Title.
SubTitle.
Copy of Original Document (Document 2) - After Revisions
SubTitle.
After Comparing Documents
(<-Red: Deletion)
The Title.(<- Red Underline: Addition)More Title.
SubTitle.
NOTE: Although it is not shown here, the deleted paragraph mark would be displayed as red, given default Track Changes settings (on the Tools menu, click Options; then click the Track Changes tab). Additional text around the deleted paragraph mark may be displayed as strikethrough and/or underlined.
To reproduce this behavior, follow these steps:
- In Word, create a new document.
- In the new blank document, type "Title." and press ENTER.
- Type "More Title." and press ENTER.
- Type "SubTitle."
- Save the document as Before.Doc.
- Delete the paragraph mark you created when pressing ENTER in step 1.
Your text should now appear as follows:Title.MoreTitle.
SubTitle. - Save your changes as After.Doc.
- On the Tools menu, point to Track Changes, and click Compare Documents.
- In the "Select File to Compare With Current Document" dialog box, select the "Before.Doc" that you created in step 5, and click Open.
If Show/Hide is turned on, you should see the deleted paragraph mark.
For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Additional query words: add chop disk file markings marks redline redlining remove review revision screen strikeout workgroup unmarked first untracked
Keywords: kbdtacode kbmacroexample kbprb KB185483