How to Enable Track Changes in Word (And What It Actually Does)

If you've ever shared a document for review and come back to a version you barely recognize, Track Changes is the feature that makes collaborative editing manageable. It records every insertion, deletion, and formatting edit — showing who changed what and when — so nothing gets lost or overwritten without a record.

Here's how it works, how to turn it on, and why the right approach depends on how you're using Word.

What Track Changes Does

When Track Changes is active, Word stops silently applying edits. Instead, it marks every change visually:

• Insertions appear underlined (usually in a contrasting color)
• Deletions appear as strikethrough text or are moved to a margin balloon
• Formatting changes are logged in the margin
• Comments can be added alongside edits

Each change is tagged with the editor's name and a timestamp. If multiple people review the same document, Word assigns each reviewer a different color, making it easy to see whose edits are whose.

The document author — or anyone with editing rights — can then accept or reject each change individually or all at once.

How to Enable Track Changes in Word 🖊️

The method is consistent across modern versions of Word (Microsoft 365, Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2013), with minor visual differences in the ribbon layout.

On Windows (Desktop)

1. Open your Word document
2. Click the Review tab in the top ribbon
3. Click Track Changes in the Tracking group
4. The button highlights when active — changes are now being recorded

Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + E

On Mac (Desktop)

1. Open your document in Word for Mac
2. Click the Review tab
3. Click Track Changes to toggle it on
4. Confirm the button appears highlighted or pressed

Keyboard 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 simplified feature set. Some markup display options available in the desktop app may not appear in the browser version.

On Mobile (iOS / Android)

1. Open the document in the Word mobile app
2. Tap the Edit icon (pencil)
3. Tap the Review tab (may require tapping the overflow menu depending on screen size)
4. Toggle Track Changes on

Mobile tracking works, but viewing and managing markup is more limited than on desktop. For detailed review sessions, desktop is generally more practical.

Controlling How Markup Appears

Enabling Track Changes is only part of the picture. Word also lets you control how markup displays — which affects what you see on screen without affecting what's actually recorded.

These modes are found in the Show Markup dropdown in the Review tab. Switching between them does not accept or reject changes — it only changes your view.

This distinction matters: a collaborator could send you a document in "No Markup" view, and changes are still tracked underneath. Always check the Review tab before assuming a document is clean.

Protecting Track Changes with a Password

If you're sending a document for review and want to prevent reviewers from turning off Track Changes (or accepting changes without your knowledge), Word lets you lock the feature:

1. Go to Review → Track Changes → Lock Tracking
2. Set a password
3. Without that password, others cannot disable tracking or accept/reject edits

This is particularly useful in formal review workflows, legal document drafting, or academic editing contexts where an audit trail needs to stay intact.

Accepting and Rejecting Changes

Once you've collected feedback, you'll find the Accept and Reject buttons in the Review tab:

• Accept All Changes — applies every tracked edit and cleans up the markup
• Reject All Changes — removes every tracked edit and restores the original
• Accept/Reject one at a time — lets you move through each change and decide individually

Accepting all changes before sharing a final version is important — markup left in a document can be visible to recipients even if they aren't expecting it.

Variables That Affect Your Experience 🔍

Track Changes behaves consistently in principle, but a few factors shape how useful it is in practice:

• Word version — Older versions (pre-2013) have fewer markup display options and may handle complex formatting changes differently
• Document format — .docx files support full tracking; .doc or other formats may have limitations. PDFs don't support Track Changes at all
• Collaboration platform — Editing through SharePoint or OneDrive introduces real-time co-authoring, which interacts with tracked changes differently than emailing a file back and forth
• Number of reviewers — With many simultaneous editors, markup can become visually dense and harder to manage
• Mobile vs. desktop — The mobile app supports tracking but lacks the full suite of markup management tools

How much these variables matter depends on what you're actually doing with the document — a solo proofreading pass looks very different from a multi-stakeholder contract review. The feature is the same; the complexity of managing it scales with your workflow.