Comments, track changes and compare

Writer has the tools for reviewing a document with other people: comments, tracked changes that someone can accept or reject, and a comparison that marks up the differences between two versions. Everything is saved in Word’s own format, so reviewers using Word see the same comments and changes.

The reviewing pane

The reviewing pane lists comments on one tab and tracked changes on the other.

To open it, do one of these:

On the Review tab, in the Comments group, click Comment on the selection or the comment count. The pane opens on Comments.
On the Review tab, in the Tracking group, click the reviewing pane button (Reviewing pane — the comments and the changes). The pane opens on Changes.
Click More (three dots) in the title bar, then Reviewing pane.
Click the comment count in the status bar.

The pane is titled Review. Its two tabs show counts: Comments shows how many comment threads are still open, and Changes shows how many tracked changes there are. Click the × at the top right to close the pane. Clicking the button for the tab that is already showing also closes it.

Who your comments and changes are signed as

Writer signs every comment and tracked change with a name and the date and time:

The Author in the document’s properties, if it has one when you open the document.
Otherwise Me.

The name appears under the comment box (“Signed” and the name) and in the track changes tooltip. To use a different name, set Author in More › Document properties…, save, close the document and open it again. See Document properties.

Comments

A comment is a note attached to a piece of text. Comments are saved in the document, together with replies and whether each thread is resolved.

Add a comment

Select the text the comment is about. If you don’t select anything, the comment is attached to the word at the caret.
Open the reviewing pane on its Comments tab.
Type in the box at the bottom of the pane (New comment on the selection…).
Click Comment.

The status bar says Comment added. The commented text gets a light tint on the page, and the comment appears in the list.

Read comments

Comments are grouped into threads — a comment and the replies to it. Each thread shows:

Part	What it shows
Quoted text	The text the comment is about, in quotation marks. Click it to select that text in the document. If the text has been deleted, the thread says “The text this was about has gone.”
Each comment	The author’s initials and name, and the comment. Replies are indented under the comment they answer.
Resolved	Shown beside the first comment of a resolved thread. The text of a resolved thread is greyed.
Tick button	Mark it resolved, or Reopen this thread for a resolved thread.
Bin button	Delete this comment, or Delete this thread and the number of replies.

A thread about the text at the caret is highlighted, so moving through the document shows you which comments apply where you are.

When the document has no comments, the tab says “No comments yet. Select some text and write one below — it is written into the file in Word’s own format, so whoever you send it to sees it where you put it.”

Resolve or reopen a thread

In the thread, click the tick button (Mark it resolved).

The thread stays in the list, marked Resolved. To reopen it, click the tick button again (Reopen this thread).

Delete a comment

In the thread, click the bin button.

The whole thread — the comment and every reply — is deleted, and the tint comes off the text. The status bar says Comment deleted. Press ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows and Linux) to bring it back.

Track changes

With track changes on, Writer records your edits instead of applying them silently. Each change is signed and dated, and anyone reviewing the document — in Writer or in Word — can accept or reject it.

Turn track changes on or off

On the Review tab, in the Tracking group, click the track changes button.

When tracking is on, the button is highlighted, Tracking on appears in the status bar, and the status bar message says “Track changes is on. Edits are recorded as” followed by your name.

To turn tracking off, click the button again, or click Tracking on in the status bar. Changes already recorded stay in the document.

The setting is saved in the document. A document that was sent to you with tracking on opens with tracking on.

What is recorded

Edit	Recorded as
Typing	An insertion.
Deleting text	A deletion. The text stays on the page, struck through, until someone accepts the deletion.
Replacing selected text	A deletion and an insertion.
Bold, italic, font, colour and other character formatting	A formatting change that remembers the old formatting.
Pressing `Return`	An inserted paragraph mark.
Joining two paragraphs with `Delete`	A deleted paragraph mark. The paragraphs stay apart until someone accepts it.
Adding a table row	An inserted row.
Deleting a table row	A deleted row.
Removing a page break	A deletion.
Changing a link’s text in the link dialog	A deletion and an insertion.
Replace in the find bar	A deletion and an insertion.

If you delete text that you inserted yourself while tracking — and nobody has accepted it yet — it is removed outright instead of being struck through. If you delete text that someone else inserted, it is struck through, and rejecting your deletion brings their insertion back as it was.

How changes look

On the page	Meaning
Text with a green underline	Inserted text.
Red text, struck through	Deleted text.
A dotted amber underline	A formatting change.
A double underline	Text that was moved here.
A double strikethrough	Text that was moved away from here.
A row tinted green	An inserted table row.
A row tinted red, text struck through	A deleted table row.

Review changes in the pane

Open the reviewing pane on its Changes tab.

At the top, the pane lists each author and how many changes they made. Then it lists every change in document order:

Part	What it shows
Heading	The author, then what happened: Inserted, Deleted, Formatted, Inserted a row, Deleted a row, Moved here or Moved away. A change to a paragraph mark adds “a paragraph mark”.
Text	The text involved — underlined for insertions, struck through for deletions.
Tick button	Accept this change — or Accept the move — both halves of it.
Cross button	Reject this change — or Reject the move — both halves of it.
Date	When the change was made.

Click the heading or text of a change to select it in the document.

At the bottom of the pane, Accept all and Reject all resolve every change.

When there are no changes, the tab says either “No tracked changes. Turn tracking on in the Review tab and edits are recorded rather than applied silently.” or, with tracking on, that every edit from here is recorded as your name.

Review changes from the ribbon

On the Review tab, the Changes group works on the change at the caret:

Control	What it does
The previous tracked change	Selects the change before the caret. From the first change, it goes to the last.
The next tracked change	Selects the change after the caret. From the last change, it goes to the first.
Tick button	Accepts the change at the caret. The tooltip names its author, for example Accept the change by and the name.
Cross button	Rejects the change at the caret.
Accept all	Accepts every tracked change in the document.
Reject all	Rejects every tracked change in the document.

All of these are dimmed when the document has no tracked changes. The tick and cross buttons are dimmed until the caret is on a change (“Put the caret on a change to accept it”).

What accepting and rejecting do

Change	Accept	Reject
Insertion	The text becomes ordinary text.	The text is removed.
Deletion	The text is removed.	The text comes back.
Formatting change	The new formatting stays.	The old formatting comes back.
Inserted paragraph mark	The paragraphs stay split.	The paragraphs are joined.
Deleted paragraph mark	The paragraphs are joined.	The paragraphs stay apart.
Move	The text stays where it arrived and leaves where it was.	The text goes back where it was.
Inserted row	The row stays.	The row is removed.
Deleted row	The row is removed.	The row stays.

A move has two halves — where the text left and where it arrived. Accepting or rejecting either half resolves both.

The status bar confirms what happened — for example “Accept change by” and the author, “Accepted the move by” and the author followed by “both halves of it”, or “Accept all changes —” and the number of changes. Each accept or reject is one step you can undo.

Moves come from documents reviewed in Word and from comparing documents. Cutting and pasting text in Writer records a deletion and an insertion.

Compare two documents

Compare shows how the document you have open would have to change to become another version of it. Writer marks up the differences in your open document as tracked changes, so you review them with the same tools.

Open the older version — the original.
On the Review tab, in the Compare group, click the compare button (Compare with another document — the differences arrive as tracked changes you can accept or reject).
In the file picker, choose the newer version — a .docx file — and click Open.

Writer marks the differences as tracked changes signed with your name and the current time. If there are any, the reviewing pane opens on Changes. The status bar shows the other file’s name and a summary — for example “Report v2.docx: 412 inserted, 36 deleted, 2 new paragraphs, 1 moved” (counts of characters for insertions and deletions) — or “The two documents are the same”.

What you can do next:

Review the changes one at a time.
Click Accept all to turn the document into the newer version.
Click Reject all to go back to the original.
Press ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows and Linux) to take back the whole comparison in one step.
Save the marked-up document with Save a copy as to send it to someone. Word shows the differences as tracked changes.

How Writer compares:

It lines up paragraphs by how much text they share, then compares edited paragraphs word by word, so a fixed typo shows as a small change rather than a replaced paragraph.
A paragraph that moved without being edited is marked as a move. A paragraph that moved and was also edited shows as a deletion and an insertion.
A table whose text changed is marked as the old table deleted and the new table inserted.
It compares text.

If the other file can’t be read, the status bar says Could not compare with that file: and the reason.