How to Redline a Document in Microsoft Word

Redlining a document means marking it up with tracked changes, comments, and edits so that collaborators can see exactly what was added, removed, or flagged — without permanently altering the original text. In Word, this process is built directly into the app through a feature called Track Changes, and it's the standard method used by legal teams, editors, writers, and business professionals when reviewing contracts, reports, and drafts.

Here's how it works, what the options mean, and what factors shape the experience depending on how you work.

What "Redlining" Actually Means in Word

The term comes from the old practice of physically marking up printed documents with a red pen. In digital workflows, redlining refers to the same idea: showing proposed edits in a way that preserves the original content alongside the suggested changes.

In Microsoft Word, Track Changes is the engine behind redlining. When enabled, every insertion, deletion, and formatting change is recorded and attributed to a specific reviewer. Nothing is silently overwritten — the original text stays visible until changes are accepted or rejected.

How to Turn On Track Changes ✏️

To start redlining in Word:

1. Open your document
2. Go to the Review tab in the ribbon
3. Click Track Changes — it toggles on and stays active until you turn it off
4. Begin editing as normal

From this point, any text you type appears underlined (typically in a distinct color), and any text you delete appears with a strikethrough rather than disappearing. Each reviewer is assigned a different color automatically, making it easy to distinguish between multiple contributors.

Keyboard shortcut:Ctrl + Shift + E (Windows) or Command + Shift + E (Mac) toggles Track Changes on and off.

Understanding What Gets Marked

Word tracks several types of changes by default:

Comments are slightly different from tracked edits — they don't change the text at all. You add them by selecting text, then clicking New Comment in the Review tab. Comments appear in the margin and are useful for questions, explanations, or flagging sections for discussion.

Viewing and Managing Tracked Changes

Word gives you several display modes to control what you see while reviewing:

• Simple Markup — shows a red line in the margin where changes exist, without cluttering the text
• All Markup — shows every tracked change inline with full detail
• No Markup — shows how the document would look if all changes were accepted
• Original — shows the document before any changes

You can switch between these using the Display for Review dropdown in the Review tab. This is useful when you want to read the document cleanly while changes are still recorded in the background.

To accept or reject changes individually, right-click any marked change and choose Accept or Reject. To process everything at once, use Accept All Changes or Reject All Changes from the Track Changes dropdown.

Who's Editing What: Reviewer Identity

Word ties tracked changes to the user account name set in your Office settings. If multiple people are editing the same document, each person's changes appear in a unique color with their name attached.

This matters especially when documents circulate via email or shared drives. If someone edits with Track Changes off, those edits won't be recorded — which is a common source of confusion when versions get mixed up.

To check or change the name Word associates with your edits: go to File → Options → General and look under "Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office."

Redlining in Word Online vs. Desktop

The desktop version of Word offers the most complete Track Changes experience. Word for the Web (the browser-based version) supports basic tracked changes but has a more limited interface — some formatting change details and certain display options aren't available in the browser version.

If you're collaborating in SharePoint or OneDrive, multiple users can edit simultaneously, and changes are tracked per user. This is closer to how Google Docs works, though the display and review tools behave differently.

Variables That Affect Your Redlining Workflow 🔍

How useful Track Changes turns out to be in practice depends on a few real factors:

• Version of Word — features and balloon behavior have evolved across Office 2016, 2019, 2021, and Microsoft 365
• File format — Track Changes works fully in .docx files; .doc (older format) has limited support, and PDFs don't support it at all
• Number of reviewers — documents with many simultaneous contributors can become visually cluttered in All Markup view
• Document complexity — heavily formatted documents (tables, tracked footnotes, embedded objects) can produce unexpected markup behavior
• Collaboration method — emailing files back and forth creates versioning risks that cloud-based co-authoring avoids

Some workflows involve accepting all changes before sending to a final reviewer, then starting a fresh round of tracking. Others keep a full revision history intact throughout. Legal and compliance contexts often have specific requirements about how markup is preserved or removed before a document is finalized.

Whether Track Changes alone covers your redlining needs — or whether you need a more structured review process, a specific version of Word, or a particular sharing method — comes down to who's involved, what the document is for, and how your team already works.