Tracking Changes In Pages Documents

You can use the change tracking feature in pages to pass a document between multiple writers or editors and see suggestions from each. Change tracking will record deletions, changes and notes with the name of the editor. You can review the changes and incorporate them into the final document.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to use the Change Tracking features in Pages.
I'm using Pages version 5.0 and we're going to look at Change Tracking.
Say you have a document and you're the editor for the document. So the author gives you this document and you want to not make changes but actually mark it up so the author can decide what exactly to change, or accept, or maybe read your comments.
You want to turn on Change Tracking. You do that under Edit/Track Changes. Once it is on you get an extra toolbar at the top with some controls. 
So basically there is a bunch of things you can do now to make changes and they will be recorded. One of the most basic things you can do is to Delete something. You select some text and hit Delete. Notice how the text remains there but it shows a line through it and changes color. If you rollover it you can actually see what the change was. Deleted this word and you can Accept of Reject it right here on the spot. Accepting it would actually make the change permanent. So you probably want to leave that up to whoever it is you are making these changes for.
Other things you can do is you can just simply Highlight something. So you can create a highlight there. So calling out something that is important. You can also just add a comment to it and then now you have this comment here. You rollover it these highlights and comments and you can see what it is all about. You can even see who made the change or suggested the change and the time the change was made.
Another common thing you would do is to just simply replace text. So I'm going to replace this text here. You can see the crossed out text that has been deleted and this has been added.
Once you have a document marked up you can, of course, go through and accept or reject or leave it up for the next person to pass this on to that they can accept or reject this text. You can use this button here, you can use these buttons there, you can  use the arrow keys to go back and forth between all of the changes or suggestions or notes.
You also have different options under here. For instance you can view everything, full Markup, you can just do Markup but minus deletions which might be easier to see, and you can do Final which will basically make it look like all the changes, all the suggestions and deletions, have been taken into account. So you can more easily read the document.
Also, you can Accept All Changes or Reject All Changes. Sometimes this is useful if you look through a document and only reject changes, for instance, or only accept changes and you know the rest are just either going to be accepted or rejected.
You can also choose the Author Color. So for you editing the document you can say well I'm going to be yellow and if another editor is working this is going to be green and then that way we know who is making the changes by glancing at the document here.
At anytime you can pause tracking. So you can actually make some permanent changes to something and then turn it back on and then the changes will once again be recorded. Also at anytime you can turn off tracking and at this point you have to do something with the information. Either accept or reject all the changes. 
Notice that the highlights and the notes still remain since they are not either changes or deletions. But these notes are not for the final document. So say if you would go to Print you notice here in the Print Preview it doesn't show those highlights. The same for exporting out. So this is simply for working on the document.
So what you can do with this is to have one person write something. Have one or more people edit it and suggest changes but without making those changes actually permanent in the document. Return it to the original author or final editor who then rejects or accepts the different changes, answers questions in notes. Removes the notes if they are no longer needed and that way you have a whole process where multiple people work on a document to make it the best it can be.

Comments: 5 Responses to “Tracking Changes In Pages Documents”

Shirley Allan

11 years ago

Is it all "roll over" to see the changes and no longer see them in a sidebar as before?

Gary Rosenzweig

I don't think there is a way to view a tracking sidebar, no.

Linda Lyn

Thank you Gary
It is very useful I have to put them into practice to get the benifit from your teaching.

Bonny

How can I change author color for track changes, but only for new changes I'm making, in order to distinguish them from changes I made on an earlier version? (I need this because I am going on to make some further edits on a version that my colleagues have not finished reviewing yet, and I want to distinguish between the "old" edits I made, which they're reviewing, and fresh edits I'm making now.) Thanks!

Not sure. Changing your user color, or becoming another user probably isn't the right way to go here. I would stick with your user ID and color, and just rely on the fact that all edits have a timestamp.

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Tracking Changes In Pages Documents

Comments: 5 Responses to “Tracking Changes In Pages Documents”

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