Do you know how to make sure you don’t lose your edits or forget what you’ve changed? I’ll need to recombine the files I receive back from multiple editors, compiling all their changes into one master file. But how will I know I’ve caught everything? (Simple answer; I won’t, but I’ll do my best.)

The file I send to the editors is locked:

1. In Word, go to the “review” menu and click on “restrict editing.”
2. In the panel or menu that appears, check the box “allow only this type of editing” and select “track changes.”
3. Save the file to a new name, and send this new name to the editors.

Edits made in a locked file appear with straight lines in the margins and nice bright colors in the text, making them easy to see. Also

1. Even if your file wasn’t locked, if you have selected “track changes” in the “review” menu, your changes will have the same straight lines and bright colors.
2. Click on the “next” and “previous” to work your way through the changes and see what they are.
3. If you’re file wasn’t locked, you’re able to accept or reject the changes one by one. (This is what I will do as I add the changes to my own master file.)

All of which is great, but how do you check you didn’t mis-type something?

1. Saving the file to a new file-name means I can easily compare files.
2. Under the “review” menu, click on “compare.”
3. Use the file browser to set the original file to the old file, the changed version to the new.
4. Compare will bring up a multi-panel window – best to expand that to fill your screen.
5. On the left hand side is a list of all differences. Go through them one by one, and if something’s wrong, edit the newer version of the file to fix it.
6. Then compare the files again.

Wish me luck!