tracking changes in word

[tpsiks]

Hi,

I have a group of people that make policies. Problem is that each individual can modify any of the policies, and we don't know who did what to the word documents. Is there any way that I can make a on Save/Close Event that it will save a copy of it on the network. I want to also place a label control in the word document to pull the username and the computer name on a Save Event.

I googled for hours and have not found anything like it.

thanks for any help.

 

[macropod]

Hi tpsiks,

Is there a reason you can't use the 'by author' property of the 'Track Changes' function?


Cheers
[MS MVP - Word]

 

[tpsiks]

It doesn't keep track of who entered/changed what a year ago, 2 years ago, maybe longer. Maybe I am wrong, hopefully. I probably have to move them out of using MS Word somehow in order to achieve this. They will throw a fist if I do.
I have never programmed in Word before, and it's a bit strange to me than Excel or Access. In Excel, I have a code to display the username or computer name on a cell. I just need to be able to call the on Save/close event then make it save a copy onto a network location.

Any other advise is appreciated.

 

[kzutter]

Don't re-invent the wheel, and don't make your users stop using Word. I am a policy writer. Word is my hammer and my nail.
If Track Changes does not satisfy your needs, invest in a version control system.

I have used both SourceSafe and Subversion for tracking versions of documents. That was years ago. I am sure that today there are plenty of for-pay and open source tools that will fill your need.

 

[macropod]

Hi tpsiks,

It doesn't keep track of who entered/changed what a year ago, 2 years ago, maybe longer.

Where did you get that from? Unless someone has accepted the change (or the person who made the change undoes it) which means it's no longer regarded as a change, the tracking details remain forever.


Cheers
[MS MVP - Word]

 

[tpsiks]

Well,
both of you gave me leads to my solution. I use Track changes lightly, all I knew was that the document was made by various people and that they always accept the changes. I think that's where I got lost in this. So I'll have to make new documents as the original author and then not accept any changes. I will try those tools as mentioned. yeah I hate to reinvent the wheel or make people not use Word.

thanks for helping!

 

[macropod]

Hi tpsiks,

The way we approached this for a series of user manuals I used to maintain was to use 'Track Changes' to identify what was being changed from one edition of the manual to the next.

Any 'approved' changes retained their tracking until publication of the next edition occurred. Then, after publication (so that the changes were highlighted in the printed & on-line copies), the latest edition, including all the tracked changes, was archived (in a Zip file). After that, all the changes were accepted and the process started over.

Using an approach like the above, you can keep a permanent record of who changed what & when, without things getting bogged down with documents trying to track changes to changes to changes to changes ad nauseum.


Cheers
[MS MVP - Word]

 

[Madawc]

Where I work, we use 'Track Changes' and it's always obvious who did what. This is because each of us has a User Name set up for Word. Check Tools > Options [User Information], I suspect that you'll find it blank and will need to persuade everyone to set it up. (Or allow someone else to set it up while they are logged on, if they are not technically minded.)

Madawc Williams (East Anglia, UK). Using Crystal 10 & 11.5 with Windows XP

 

[tpsiks]

Thanks all,

that got me what I needed. I didn't know if what was available for me would work or not and didn't want to waste time on figuring it out until I can get a quick answer like this to tell me that it would work or not.

Thanks again.