Change tracking is one of those features in Word -- and other word processors -- that looks wonderful in principle but is often horrible in reality. Yes, it keeps track of all the edits you make in a document, but when you want to see them all you get is a screen full of red excisions. And if you're working on a collaborative document, as I am at the moment, there are other colours too, which makes it all the more confusing.

Here is one way to make this feature enormously useful. Save two versions of the file your editing -- say Version 2 and Version 2.1. Open both in side by side windows on the screen. Keep the version you want to edit, 2.1, in normal view, with track changes hidden. Then turn on 'Final: show Markup' in the original file.

You now have the same document (under two different names) side by side on the screen. On one side you can see the changes. On the other the result of them.

Now find this useful little command on the Ribbon bar.<!--more-->

<a href="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/scrollmenu1.jpg"><img class="alignright size-large wp-image-6528" title="scrollmenu" src="http://vir.liquidweb.com/~davidhe4/davidhewson.com//wp-content/uploads/2010/12/scrollmenu1.jpg?w=640" alt="" width="640" height="78" /></a>

Select View Side by Side and Synchronous Scrolling. Then scroll one of the documents. You will see the other scroll to the same position in sync as you move forwards and backwards. So you can view the changes you and others have made instantly, and see what they look like with and without all that redlining too.

As far as I can see it does <em>not</em> work by simply opening  a new window on the same file. So you need to save a new revise of your document, which is probably a good idea anyway. But it's made revision tracking usable for me for the first time.

Neat trick, and I gather it works on Word for the Mac too.

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