Finding Changes Made by Two People

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 20, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Arnold has a document in which Track Changes is turned on. The document has been edited by multiple people. He would like to find text that was added by one person (we'll call him Ted) and then deleted by another person (Mary). Arnold wonders if this can be done.

This cannot be done in the way that Arnold describes. The closest you can come is to display changes by both Ted and Mary, in this manner:

Make sure the Review tab of the ribbon is displayed.
Click the Show Markup tool (in the Tracking group) and then click either Reviewers or Specific People, depending on your version of Word. You should see a list of the reviewers with changes in the current document.
Make sure a check mark appears only beside Ted's name and Mary's name; clear the check marks for any other reviewers.

At this point, only changes made by Ted and Mary are shown in the document. This doesn't answer Arnold's specific need, though, because he wants to see edits to the same text by both Ted and Mary, and what is showing on the screen now is any edits by either Ted or Mary.

Arnold can, however, use the Next Change tool on the Review tab of the ribbon to jump to the next change in the document. By then hovering over the change, he can see who made the specific change and narrow down to those changes made to the same text by both reviewers.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13665) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

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...

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