Turn Track Changes On or Off in Word and Accept or Reject Edits

You need Word to mark every edit so a reviewer can see what changed — or you’ve been handed a document full of colored markup and need to clean it up.

Why: Track Changes records insertions, deletions, and formatting as you type. Deletions show with a strikethrough and additions with an underline, each author in a different color. Once you’re done reviewing, you accept or reject each change to finalize the text.

Step 1: Turn Track Changes on or off

1. Go to the Review tab.
2. In the Tracking group, click Track Changes.
3. Choose For Everyone to record all authors’ edits, or Just Mine to track only yours.
4. To stop tracking, click Track Changes again and choose Off. New edits stop being marked, but existing markup stays until you accept or reject it.

Step 2: Control how the markup looks

Heavy markup can be hard to read. Change the view without changing the document.

1. On the Review tab, open the Display for Review drop-down (it usually reads All Markup).
2. Pick the view you want:
   • All Markup — shows every change inline with each reviewer’s color.
   • Simple Markup — hides the detail and shows a red line in the margin where changes exist.
   • No Markup — shows the document as it would look with all changes accepted (nothing is actually applied).
   • Original — shows the document before any tracked changes.

This only affects display — it does not accept or reject anything.

Step 3: Accept or reject the changes

1. Click at the start of the document.
2. On the Review tab, in the Changes group, click Next to jump to the first tracked change.
3. Click Accept to keep it (and move to the next) or Reject to discard it.
4. To clear everything at once, open the drop-down under Accept and choose Accept All Changes, or use Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking to also switch tracking off. The Reject drop-down offers the same all-at-once options.

You can also right-click any individual change to accept or reject it inline.

FAQ

Edits aren’t being marked even though I want them tracked. Track Changes is off. Go to Review > Track Changes and turn it on (For Everyone or Just Mine).

The markup disappeared but the changes are still tracked. You’re in No Markup or Simple Markup view. Switch Display for Review back to All Markup — the changes were never removed, just hidden.

I accepted everything but new edits still show markup. Accepting changes doesn’t turn off tracking. Use Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking, or turn off Track Changes separately.

Sources: Microsoft Support — Track changes in Word, Microsoft Support — Accept or reject tracked changes in Word