Resolving Tracked Changes in Footnotes or Endnotes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 12, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365

Leo wonders if, in a document with tracked changes, there is a way to accept or reject only the changes that appear in the footnotes or endnotes.

In general, you can accept or reject tracked changes in a portion of your document by first selecting that portion and then doing the accepting or rejecting. Thus, to perform the task in the footnotes or endnotes you could do the following:

Click once within either your endnotes or footnotes. The point is to make sure that the insertion point is within the endnotes or footnotes themselves.
Press Ctrl+A. This selects all the footnotes or endnotes. (If this action selects your entire document, you didn't make sure that the insertion point was within the footnotes or endnotes in step 1.)
Display the Review tab of the ribbon.
Click the down-arrow next to the either the Accept or Reject tools, depending on whether you want to accept or reject the changes. Word displays a list of options for the tool.
Choose Accept Change or Reject Change, depending on which tool you chose in step 3. Word accepts or rejects all the changes in the endnotes or footnotes.

You'll want to make sure in steps 5 that you choose the correct option. If you choose one of the Accept All Changes or Reject All Changes options, by mistake, you'll actually get rid of all the changes in the entire document, which is not what you want to do.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (266) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Setting a Default Document Format

Word allows you to save your documents in a variety of different formats. You can specify the format when you actually ...

Discover More

Saving an Envelope for Future Use

It can take a while to get an envelope to appear just the way you need. Why throw your work away when you are done with ...

Discover More

Easy Filtering Specifications for a PivotTable

When you want to include specific records from a source table into a PivotTable, you need to employ some sort of ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Protecting Tracked Changes

Track Changes is a great tool for editors and collaborators to use when creating documents. An author, seeking changes ...

Discover More

Accepting All Formatting Changes

Tired of wading through a bunch of formatting changes when you have Track Changes turned on? Here's how to accept all ...

Discover More

Accepting All Deletions in a Document

When you use Track Changes in a document, it is easy to amass quite a few edits that you need to accept of reject. If you ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is four more than 6?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.