Accepting All Deletions in a Document

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated July 10, 2021)

Mitch uses Track Changes in his documents quite a bit. He knows how to accept or reject changes. He's wondering, though, if there is a way to accept a complete subset of changes, such as accepting all deletions in the document, without affecting any other tracked changes.

This can be done, but only by using a macro. Fortunately, VBA allows you to access the revisions made in your document, as long as they were made with Track Changes turned on. The following macro steps through each revision and, if it is a deletion, it accepts that revision:

Sub AcceptDeletions()
    Dim oRev As Revision

    For Each oRev In ActiveDocument.Revisions
        If oRev.Type = wdRevisionDelete Then oRev.Accept
    Next oRev
End Sub

Note that there are two key elements in this macro. First, is the value stored in the .Type property. Word actually allows 22 different types of revisions, as detailed in this WordTip. As shown in the example above, the macro checks only to see if the .Type property indicates that the revision is, in fact, a deletion.

The second key element is the .Accept method. This causes the revision to be accepted, but you could just as easily specify the .Reject method, which would cause the revision to be rejected.

Finally, you should note that after running the macro, all deletions will be accepted in the document, but you won't be able to use Ctrl+Z to undo the effects of the macro.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13881) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 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...

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