Getting a Warning for Markup

The Track Changes feature in Word is a great editing tool, as it allows you to show the changes made in a document over time. A related tool, Comments, allows you to insert comments in a document for any number of reasons. You might not want to share your changes or comments with others, or to print documents that contain these types of markups. In that case, Word includes a way that you can double-check to make sure you don't do this. Follow these steps:

1. Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 or a later version display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
2. At the left side of the dialog box click Trust Center.
3. Click the Trust Center Settings button. Word displays the Trust Center dialog box.
4. Click Privacy Options at the left of the dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Privacy Options of the Trust Center dialog box.

5. Make sure the Warn Before Printing, Saving, or Sending a File That Contains Tracked Changes or Comments check box is selected.
6. Click on OK to close the Trust Center dialog box.
7. Click on Cancel to close the Word Options dialog box.

With this check box selected, Word displays a warning if you try to print, save, or e-mail a file containing either comments or change marks. Since comments and change marks are considered confidential information in many organizations, this option is on the Security tab. (Some people might think it belongs on the Track Changes tab or the Edit tab.)

You should know that selecting this option only presents a dialog box if you do the e-mailing of the document using the menu options in Word. If you close Word and then send the document as an attachment to an e-mail message, no warning is provided.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6050) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Getting a Warning for Markup.