Making Sure Changes and Comments are Anonymous

John publishes a journal whose articles are peer-reviewed, and the reviewers are supposed to remain anonymous from the person who originally wrote the article. As reviewers (called referees) are reviewing articles, they keep Track Changes turned on so that modifications and comments stand out in the document.

The problem is that Word, as part of the Track Changes feature, also tracks the name of the person who made a particular change. If the original article author got the article back and hovered the mouse pointer over a change or comment, the name of the referee would be visible.

It is possible, of course, to tell the referees to make a change or two to Word prior to making any changes in an article being reviewed. Just display the General options (in the Word Options dialog box) and then replace the user's name and initials with a space or some nondescript wording, such as "Referee 1." Any changes from that point on will then bear that name and anonymity will be preserved.

Note that merely deleting the user name and initials in the dialog box will not work; you must use a space or a new word/name. The dialog box will put the original name back in an empty name box and a letter in the initial box.

Of course, this approach works only if your referees use it before they start making comments in the paper. If they don't then you still need to "anonymize" the comments and changes in the paper. That is where a tool called the Document Inspector can come in handy. Follow these steps:

1. Click the File tab of the ribbon.
2. Make sure Info is selected at the left side of the screen.
3. Click the Check for Issues button (right next to the wording "Prepare for Sharing" in Word 2010 or the wording "Inspect Document" in later versions of Word). Word displays a few options you can choose.
4. Click Inspect Document. Word displays the Document Inspector dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Document Inspector.

5. Make sure all the available check boxes are selected, with the possible exception of the Ink check box.
6. Click Inspect. Word examines your document for identifying information and displays, in a dialog box, what it finds. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The findings of the Document Inspector.

7. If you want to get rid of just the names in comments and changes, then click on the Remove All button next to the Document Properties and Personal Information item. (Do not click the Remove All button for the Comments, Revisions, and Versions option. That will delete all the comments and changes—something you don't want to happen.)
8. Click the Close button when done.
9. Press Esc to return to your document.

If you are using Word 2007, then the steps are a bit different:

1. Click the Office button.
2. At the left side of the screen choose Prepare | Inspect Document. Word displays the Document Inspector dialog box.
3. Make sure all the available check boxes are selected.
4. Click Inspect. Word examines your document for identifying information and displays, in a dialog box, what it finds.
5. Use the controls in the dialog box to get rid of any identifying information.
6. Click the Close button when done.

When you are through running the Document Inspector, and assuming you removed any personally identifying information, then the next time you save the document, Word replaces the referee's names with the word "Author." There is other identifying information that is removed, as well, so you should only use this method if you don't mind that information also being removed. (Things like author information that is stored in the document's Properties area are removed.)

Because the changes made by the Document Inspector are not finalized until you save the document, you may want to actually use Save As to save the document under a new name. That, or you may want to run the Document Inspector on a copy of your original file. That way you'll have the original file to fall back upon should something go awry.

There is a more selective, but involved, method that can be used to just remove the referee's information. This method will work with any version of Word. Follow these general steps:

1. Save the document in RTF format.
2. Open the RTF file as text only, preferably using a program such as Notepad.
3. Search for the characters "revtbl" (without the quote marks). This marks the beginning of revision table information stored in the file. It should have entries that look something like this:

{\*\revtbl {Unknown;}{Jane Doe;}}

4. Replace the name (Jane Doe) with some other text, but leave everything else intact. The name can be replaced with text such as "Copyeditor," "Anonymous," or simply a space " ". Be sure to leave the curly brackets and semicolon in place.
5. Look for and change the names of other reviewers in the revision table.
6. Save and close the RTF file.
7. Reopen the RTF file in Word. It should look like a normal Word document once again, but the reviewer(s) names should now be changed.
8. Save the file in Word document format again.

If you would like an even deeper dive about how to change names in comments and changes, then you should check out this tip:

https://wordribbon.tips.net/T013562

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10222) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Making Sure Changes and Comments are Anonymous.