Video: Track changes online

Collaborating with multiple people can get confusing, because you have to deal with multiple copies of the document. But, what if everyone could work off the same, original document, without making copies? Things would be a lot easier, and you can do that by collaborating online. Here’s how it works.

Track changes online

• What if all of your collaborators could work off the same, original document, without making copies? You can do that by saving the document online in your OneDrive or in your organization’s Microsoft 365 site. This is sometimes referred to as “coauthoring”. See the link under Want more? below to learn more.

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Learn all about tracking changes in Word

Co-author documents anywhere

Collaborating with multiple people can get confusing, because you have to deal with multiple copies of the document.

But, what if all the collaborators could work off the same, original document, without making copies? Things would be a lot easier. Well, you can do that by collaborating online. Here's how it works.

When you finish the first draft of your document, click FILE and Save As. Then, click Add a Place. You can save the document online in your OneDrive or in your organization's Microsoft 365 site.

If working online isn't an option, go to Movie 4 to see how to use Word's tools for combining multiple documents.

After you Sign in, click a place, then a folder, and then Save your document.

Next, click FILE and Share, and Invite People. On the To line, add the email addresses of the people on your writing team.

Type a message. Include a request to open the document in Word and turn on track changes. Click Share.

When you do, your online document is shared with the people you invited, and each person gets a share request.

When team members open the email, they click the link, and the document opens in the Word for the web.

From there, they click Edit Document and Edit in Word for the web, if they don't have Word.

Or click Edit in Word if they do. At that point, they'll have to Sign in, if they are not signed in already.

After the document opens in Word, they click Enable Editing, click the REVIEW tab, and turn on Track Changes. Then, the editing can begin.

After they add their revisions and comments, they save their changes, and it updates the online document.

Then, the next time you save the document, you see their changes, and the changes made by any other team members.

Check out the Sharing icon in the status bar.

If there is a number next to it, then you know others are working on the document.

That's right, more than one person can work on the document at the same time, and see each other's changes immediately.

After you make a change and save it, Jeff and Ann will see the change the next time they save.

While working online, you don't have to worry about combining documents and waiting for changes to come back in email.

Anyone on the team can see changes immediately by simply opening the online document.

In fact, you can collaborate with others in real time.

Team members can open the document at the same time and communicate with an app like Microsoft Lync or Skype.

After everyone's done editing, you can turn off sharing, if you want. Click FILE, Share, then right-click the Shared with people icon and either Remove User, or Change permission to:Can view.

Then, you can make final edits, accept or reject changes, and delete comments.

So, tracking changes online can make a complicated process a lot easier.

But if online isn't an option, Word has tools to help you deal with changes in multiple copies.

Up next, you'll see how to track changes in email with multiple people.