Embedded Files
Say you've created a track changes document. But now you need to copy those tracked changes and all their auto-formatted markup changes to another document to show what has changed, into a change report. You could screenshot your page, but this is time-consuming and makes it impossible to search.
And if you copy/paste this text, you'll lose the formatting in the change report.
How can you convert these markups into real formatting easily?
There's three methods:
Print to PDF (good for documents).
Copy to Excel (good for tables).
Use a Word Macro.
- Print to PDF
The easiest way is to simply print the markups to a PDF. This locks all the formatting. Then open the PDF in Word. Follow these steps:
1. Adjust the Track Changes to show the changes as colours and strikethroughs, and disable comments and formatting:
2. Print the document to PDF:
3. In the print dialog, choose a location and save the PDF.
4. Find the PDF, then open it in Word:
NOTE: If you have a PDF program installed that intercepts this (e.g. KoFAX PowerPDF, then follow their procedure to disable this, such as https://knowledge.kofax.com/MFD_Productivity/Power_PDF/How_To/How_to_stop_Word_2016_from_converting_with_Nuance_Convert_Assistant_when_opening_a_PDF?utm_source=pocket_mylist
5. Now in Word, you can copy the formatted text directly into another Word document, and all the change markups will be retained. See below for an example:
This is a sentancesentence that needs correctinghas been corrected.
2. Copy to Excel (for tables)
2. Copy to Excel (for tables)
If you copy the text to Excel, it will turn into real formatted text. This is great for tables.
There is one little catch: you need to swap line feeds and carriage returns before pasting, and after pasting you need to swap the line feeds back. My preference is to use the emoticon tongue sign :-Þ because it's easy to type (ALT-0222).
Follow this procedure to convert the markups into real formatting:
Copy the table to a new word document. This is to avoid making changes to your original document.
Open the Find/Replace (CTRL-H) dialogue box.
To stop Excel from introducing breaks and merged cells, Replace All ^l (line break) with Þ (ALT-0222):
4. Similarly, Replace All ^p (line break) with Þ (ALT-0222).
5. Open Excel.
6. Copy and paste the entire table into Excel. This will preserve the formatting.
7. Save the Excel document as an ODS file (this is required to stop Excel from remembering that some cells are changes - this seems to happen to cells with text over a certain length).
8. Open the ODS file in Excel.
9. Copy this table back into the original Word doc, with all the formatting now baked in.
10. Open the Find/Replace (CTRL-H) dialogue box.
11. Replace All Þ (ALT-0222) with ^p to fix line feeds and carriage returns. Note that it is important to do this step in Word, because Excel's Find/Replace tends to destroy some formatting.
3. Use a Word Macro
3. Use a Word Macro
Here is a macro from Stack Overflow:
' From https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34280088/ms-word-macro-for-converting-track-changes-markup-into-text?utm_source=pocket_saves
Sub StartCompareChanges()
CompareRevisionsRanges
ConvertTrackChangesToText
End Sub
Sub CompareRevisionsRanges()
Dim revs As Word.Revisions
Dim rev As Word.Revision, revOld As Word.Revision
Dim rngDoc As Word.Range
Dim rngRevNew As Word.Range, rngRevOld As Word.Range
Dim authMain As String, authNew As String, authOld As String
Dim bReject As Boolean
bReject = False
Set rngDoc = ActiveDocument.Content
Set revs = rngDoc.Revisions
If revs.count > 0 Then
authMain = revs(1).Author
Else 'No revisions so...
Exit Sub
End If
For Each rev In revs
'rev.Range.Select 'for debugging, only
authNew = rev.Author
If rev.Type = wdRevisionInsert Or wdRevisionDelete Then
Set rngRevNew = rev.Range
'There's only something to compare if an Insertion
'or Deletion have been made prior to this
If Not rngRevOld Is Nothing Then
'The last revision was rejected, so we need to check
'whether the next revision (insertion for a deletion, for example)
'is adjacent and reject it, as well
If bReject Then
If rngRevNew.Start - rngRevOld.End <= 1 And authNew <> authMain Then
rev.Reject
End If
bReject = False 'reset in any case
End If
'If the authors are the same there's no conflict
If authNew <> authOld Then
'If the current revision is not the main author
'and his revision is in the same range as the previous
'this means his revision has replaced that
'of the main author and must be rejected.
If authNew <> authMain And rngRevNew.InRange(rngRevOld) Then
rev.Reject
bReject = True
'If the previous revision is not the main author
'and the new one is in the same range as the previous
'this means that revision has replaced this one
'of the main author and the previous must be rejected.
ElseIf authOld <> authMain And rngRevOld.InRange(rngRevNew) Then
revOld.Reject
bReject = True
End If
End If
End If
Set rngRevOld = rngRevNew
Set revOld = rev
authOld = authNew
End If
Next
End Sub
Sub ConvertTrackChangesToText()
Dim chgAdd As Word.Revision
If ActiveDocument.Revisions.count = 0 Then
MsgBox "There are no revisions in this document", vbOKOnly
Else
ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = False
For Each chgAdd In ActiveDocument.Revisions
If chgAdd.Type = wdRevisionDelete Then
chgAdd.Range.Font.StrikeThrough = True
chgAdd.Range.Font.Color = wdColorDarkBlue
chgAdd.Reject
ElseIf chgAdd.Type = wdRevisionInsert Then
chgAdd.Range.Font.Color = wdColorRed
chgAdd.Accept
Else
MsgBox ("Unexpected Change Type Found"), vbOKOnly + vbCritical
chgAdd.Range.Select ' move insertion point
End If
Next chgAdd
End If
End Sub
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