To turn off Track Changes in Microsoft Word, follow these steps:
- Open your Word document.
- Go to the Review tab on the ribbon at the top.
- In the Tracking group, click on Track Changes to toggle it off. When off, Word will stop marking new changes in the document
If you want to remove all existing tracked changes from the document, you need to accept or reject them:
- Use the Accept or Reject buttons in the Changes group on the Review tab to handle changes one by one.
- To accept or reject all changes at once and stop tracking, click the drop-down arrow next to Accept or Reject and select Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking or Reject All Changes and Stop Tracking
If the Track Changes button is grayed out, it may be locked by the document author. You will need the password to unlock it before turning it off
. Additionally, to prevent tracked changes from appearing when you open or save a document, you can adjust privacy settings:
- Go to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options.
- Uncheck "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving" to keep markup hidden by default
In summary, turning off Track Changes stops new edits from being tracked, but existing tracked changes remain until accepted or rejected. Use the Review tab controls to manage both turning off tracking and clearing existing changes.
