Tracked changes colors changed! (2000)

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I have a document with tracked changes turned on. When I made the changes to the document, they appeared in red. I have the document on a floppy and have had it in and out of three different computers. Today I opened the document on one computer and printed it. Then I used the disk (but NOT that document) on a different computer. Then I put the disk back into the first computer to print it again and all the existing changes have turned from red to green! (this happened once before, and the last time it happened – different document but with some cut-and-pastes related to this one – they turned blue).

I like the feature where it changes colors for each person who makes changes, but I don’t understand this fluke where existing changes are suddenly a different color when no changes have been made to the document. Is there any way I can turn them back to red?

Thanks,
-cynthia

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Hi Cynthia:
Someone may have a better explanation, but sometimes this can happen if more than one computer has the same username (Tools/Options/User Information/Name). Also, did Tools/Options/Track Changes get changed from “By author” to a defined color? If so, change it back. Only additions & deletions change color. Changed formatting & lines should have a defined color.

When using “by author”, Word may eventually run out of colors & start over. If your Tools/Options are set correctly, I don’t think there’s a way to force Word to use a particular color for a particular user, but maybe one of the VBA experts knows. There is the “long” way. Take a look at post 342300 & it’s surrounding thread. You can also check out the thread surrounding post 324789.
Hope this helps,

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Thanks for the tips. No one but me has touched the file – so I think the usernames on the computer might be the best clue here. I’ll check out that other post. I don’t really care WHAT color it uses, and I don’t care what color is for what author – but once it has a color for an author it seems to me that it should not change edits that have already been made. I’ll use your clues and dig further.
Thanks again!
-cynthai

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Thanks for the tips. No one but me has touched the file – so I think the usernames on the computer might be the best clue here. I’ll check out that other post. I don’t really care WHAT color it uses, and I don’t care what color is for what author – but once it has a color for an author it seems to me that it should not change edits that have already been made. I’ll use your clues and dig further.
Thanks again!
-cynthai

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Hi Cynthia:
Someone may have a better explanation, but sometimes this can happen if more than one computer has the same username (Tools/Options/User Information/Name). Also, did Tools/Options/Track Changes get changed from “By author” to a defined color? If so, change it back. Only additions & deletions change color. Changed formatting & lines should have a defined color.

When using “by author”, Word may eventually run out of colors & start over. If your Tools/Options are set correctly, I don’t think there’s a way to force Word to use a particular color for a particular user, but maybe one of the VBA experts knows. There is the “long” way. Take a look at post 342300 & it’s surrounding thread. You can also check out the thread surrounding post 324789.
Hope this helps,

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