Track Changes Handling for Tools

A Free Document Productivity Tool for Word

This release allows the user to switch off track changes for edits made by Document Productivity Tools.

If Track Changes is switched on, the system asks if you wish to record the changes by table renumbering, moving rows and other Document Productivity Tools. You might decide that these sorts of changes are cosmetic, and that the number of changes that would be recorded would be distracting, and therefore decide not track them.

The tracking rule is reset each time you start Word, and the first use of a  Document Productivity rule will bring up the dialogue shown. 

If “N” is selected, the system will temporarily switch off track changes, run the routine and restore the track changes setting.



If “Y” is selected, track changes remains on, and any changes made are tracked as normal.

The track changes decision made remains set for the remainder of the Word
session. 

If you change your mind, you can bring up the dialogue box again from the SmartTool menu (Ctrl Q).  Select option 2.

Inspiration

Over the last few weeks I have been working on a large requirements document that needed updating with changes from a large number of reviewers. I needed to track the genuine content edits, but I didn’t want to record the other moves and changes arising from the Tools, these would have recorded far to many changes to be meaningful.

I needed switch off track changes temporarily. I decided that asking the user each time they started was a useful way to remind the user that track changes was on, and to give them an opportunity review their selection at the start of each session.

Other Changes

I have taken this opportunity to update the routines already released with a few minor changes.

Table Renumbering

The routine now handles subheader rows with different number of columns to regular rows. I found this was necessary as some people like to place a single merged cell subheader row as a more obvious break than other methods.

The routine now sets subheader rows with "Keep with Next".  This ensures that the subheader row is never the last row of a table before a pagebreak, the subheader and the next row appear on the top of the next page.  There have also been some minor improvements in the way that subheader rows are identified by the code.

SmartMove Up/Down

A scroll feature has been added to ensure that the new row appears on the screen.