[franca]

Q. I am working on a Word document that needs to be reviewed by a few people. When I get it back, is there a way that I can tell if they made any changes to the document?

A. When a sales plan or another document is returned to you, it is sometimes difficult to see changes made by others. Word has a simple way to show them to you.

Here are the instructions for Word 2002: First, open the newer Word document. Click Tools>>Compare and Merge Documents. Browse to the original Word document. Click it once to highlight it. In the lower right corner, click the drop-down box and select "Merge Into Current Document."

For Word 97/2000: Click Tools. Go to Track Changes. Click Compare Document. Find the original Word document and click it once so it is highlighted. Click Open.

Sometimes, the development of a document is so arduous that we lose sight of what we're trying to do. Looking back at previous versions can help.

That's easy to do in Word. Click File>>Versions. Select "Automatically save a version on close." Every time you close the document, that version will be saved.

When you want to look at an old version, follow the same path. All of the versions will be listed in the box. The most recent will be on top. Highlight the version you want and click Open.

You can turn off this "versioning" feature by clearing the check mark from "Automatically save a version on close." Or, you can delete individual versions. Just highlight the ones you want to dump and click Delete.