How to Turn On Track Changes in Word (And What You Need to Know Before You Do)

Microsoft Word's Track Changes feature is one of the most practical tools for collaborative writing and document editing. Whether you're reviewing a contract, editing a colleague's report, or marking up a student's draft, Track Changes logs every addition, deletion, and formatting tweak — attributed to the person who made it. Before you switch it on, it helps to understand exactly how it works and what affects the experience across different setups.

What Track Changes Actually Does

When Track Changes is active, Word doesn't silently overwrite existing text. Instead, it marks every edit visually so that reviewers can see what changed, who changed it, and when. Insertions typically appear underlined in a contrasting color. Deletions appear as strikethrough text or are pushed into the margin as a comment balloon, depending on your settings.

Every collaborator gets assigned a different color automatically, so in a document with multiple reviewers, you can visually trace which changes belong to whom. This makes it easier to accept or reject edits selectively rather than approving everything at once.

Track Changes is not just for text. It captures:

• Text insertions and deletions
• Formatting changes (bold, font size, paragraph style, etc.)
• Moved blocks of text
• Table edits in some configurations

How to Turn On Track Changes in Word 🖊️

The steps vary slightly depending on your platform and version of Word, but the core path is consistent.

On Windows (Microsoft Word for Desktop)

1. Open your document in Word.
2. Click the Review tab in the ribbon at the top.
3. Click Track Changes in the Tracking group.
4. The button will appear highlighted or pressed — that means it's active.

You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + E to toggle Track Changes on or off without touching the ribbon.

On Mac (Microsoft Word for Desktop)

1. Open your document.
2. Click the Review tab.
3. Click Track Changes.
4. Alternatively, use the shortcut Command + Shift + E.

In Word for the Web (Browser-Based)

1. Open your document in Word Online via OneDrive or SharePoint.
2. Click the Review tab.
3. Select Track Changes.

Note: Word for the Web has a more limited Track Changes interface than the desktop apps. Some advanced tracking options — like adjusting how markup is displayed — may not be available in the browser version.

In Word on iPhone or Android

1. Open the document in the Word mobile app.
2. Tap the pencil/edit icon to enter editing mode.
3. Tap the Review tab (found by tapping the three-dot menu or the format icon depending on your app version).
4. Toggle Track Changes on.

Mobile functionality is more stripped-down. You can activate tracking and accept or reject individual changes, but granular display options are limited compared to desktop.

Key Variables That Affect How Track Changes Behaves

Turning the feature on is the easy part. How it behaves depends on several factors that vary from user to user.

The Markup display setting is worth pausing on. In the Review tab, you'll find a dropdown that lets you switch between:

• Simple Markup — shows a clean version with a vertical line in the margin indicating changes exist
• All Markup — shows every tracked edit inline
• No Markup — shows the final document as if all changes were accepted (edits still exist underneath)
• Original — shows the document before any tracked edits

These views don't change the underlying tracked data — they only change how it's presented on screen.

Locking Track Changes So It Can't Be Turned Off

If you're sharing a document for review and want to ensure edits can't be made without tracking, Word lets you lock Track Changes with a password. In the desktop version, go to Review → Track Changes → Lock Tracking, then set a password. Anyone editing the document without the password won't be able to disable tracking.

This is useful in legal, academic, or professional contexts where edit accountability matters.

Accepting and Rejecting Changes

Once a document comes back with tracked edits, you have full control:

• Accept Change — absorbs the edit into the document permanently
• Reject Change — removes the suggested edit and restores the original text
• Accept All / Reject All — processes every tracked edit at once

These controls live in the Review tab under the Changes group on desktop, or in the Review section on mobile.

Where Your Own Setup Changes Everything 🔍

Track Changes sounds simple, but the right approach shifts depending on whether you're working solo with a client, managing a multi-person editorial team, collaborating in real-time through Microsoft 365, or exchanging files over email with people using older versions of Word.

A solo reviewer on a local file has very different needs than a team using SharePoint with co-authoring enabled. The version of Word your collaborators are using matters too — accepting changes in Word 365 and sending the file to someone on Word 2013 can occasionally produce display inconsistencies.

How you configure markup display, whether you lock tracking, and how you handle accepted versus pending changes all depend on what the document is for, who else is touching it, and how accountable the edit trail needs to be. Those details sit entirely on your side of the screen.