Printing without Track Changes Marks

Track Changes is a handy feature to use when editing a Word document. The marks let you know what edits have been made and are particularly useful if you have multiple editors working on the same document. You may, at times, want to print a document before the changes have been resolved and not have the Track Changes marks show on the printout.

You can accomplish this task by following these steps if you are using Word 2007:

1. Press Ctrl+P. Word displays the Print dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Print dialog box in Word 2007.

2. Change the Print What drop-down list to Document.
3. Click OK.

The printout should not show your Track Changes marks. The marks are only printed if the Print What drop-down list (step 2) is set to Document Showing Markup.

If you are using Word 2010 or a later version, then the steps are different:

1. Press Ctrl+P. Word displays the File tab of the ribbon with the print options visible.
2. Click the drop-down list directly under the Settings label. (This drop-down list probably says "Print All Pages.")
3. In the options that appear, you'll see a check mark next to Print Markup. Click the check mark. All the markup disappears from the example page displayed.
4. Click Print.

The printout should not show your Track Changes marks. The marks are only printed if the check mark appears next to the Print Markup options in step 3.

It is important to understand that Word changes the value of this drop-down list (Word 2007) or check mark (Word 2010 and later versions), by default, depending on whether there are any tracked changes in your document or not. If there are not, then Document is the default setting for the drop-down (Word 2007) or the check mark is cleared (Word 2010 and later versions). If there are tracked changes (whether you have Track Changes currently on or not) then Document Showing Markup (Word 2007) or Print Markup (Word 2010 and later versions) is the default. This is why, if you have tracked changes and you want them not to show in the printout, you need to check the settings in the dialog box (Word 2007) or on the File tab of the ribbon (Word 2010 and later versions) instead of printing without checking.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9892) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Printing without Track Changes Marks.