Word 2000-2003-2003 & Track Changes (Any)

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Recently it was mentioned that “Accepting or rejecting track changes can possibly lead to document corruption”: could anyone comment on this for me? TIA,

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Where was this mentioned? And did the person who said this suggest any alternatives (such as retyping all the changes)?

Maybe this rumor also inspired this thread.

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Although I haven’t posted here for a long time I did check in on occasion and wanted to say I did miss The Lounge. I also want to say and hope I will be back here for a while anyway . . .

Now as for my previous post: Someone passed along to me this bit of information that they say a trainer had mentioned most emphatically to a class they were in.
Personally I do not believe that track changes per se can corrupt a document but rather the transition of that document from one source to another, each adding their tracked changes and of course picking up ‘goodies’ from each OS etc contribute to corruption! I did a search of the Word board before I posted and had read JScher’s comments but must admit to not reading carefully and picking up on this bit: [indent]

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My IT guy swears that there’s a “known bug” that causes Revision Tracking to crash and therefore the feature should not be used. I’ve got a bunch of engineers who would like to collaborate on written reports, and as long as we’re willing to bite the bullet and accept changes periodically, it seems to me we should have few problems, besides the usual Document Too Complex for Memory warning, which gives us warning we should have accepted changes by now. Have things changed hugely around the Word world or does this plan sound likely to work?

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Just wondered if anyone could possibly confirm the position that track changes should never be used because they will eventually corrupt a document. TIA to all for any input

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I have never heard of this “problem”. I think someone has been (creating / passing on) completely baseless rumours.

StuartR

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I just wanted to say that I concur with Stuart and JScher. It is so disheartening to read this. It is a disservice to responsible and accredited Microsoft Office trainers to have one of ‘their own’ provide this type of mis-information (not to mention, of course, our good friends at Micro$oft!).

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I don’t doubt that the application of any type of overly complex formatting can corrupt a document eventually. But I think the utility of tracking changes would run out before that point, and since there’s no good substitute (marking changes manually is possible, but seriously!), and there are other workarounds, such as managing the length of the document, most users will have all the benefits with almost no risk. Excluding, of course, the risk of making themselves look silly if they forget to accept the changes before making the document available to outsiders.

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I don’t doubt that the application of any type of overly complex formatting can corrupt a document eventually. But I think the utility of tracking changes would run out before that point, and since there’s no good substitute (marking changes manually is possible, but seriously!), and there are other workarounds, such as managing the length of the document, most users will have all the benefits with almost no risk. Excluding, of course, the risk of making themselves look silly if they forget to accept the changes before making the document available to outsiders.

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I just wanted to say that I concur with Stuart and JScher. It is so disheartening to read this. It is a disservice to responsible and accredited Microsoft Office trainers to have one of ‘their own’ provide this type of mis-information (not to mention, of course, our good friends at Micro$oft!).

Reply | Quote

I have never heard of this “problem”. I think someone has been (creating / passing on) completely baseless rumours.

StuartR

Reply | Quote

Although I haven’t posted here for a long time I did check in on occasion and wanted to say I did miss The Lounge. I also want to say and hope I will be back here for a while anyway . . .

Now as for my previous post: Someone passed along to me this bit of information that they say a trainer had mentioned most emphatically to a class they were in.
Personally I do not believe that track changes per se can corrupt a document but rather the transition of that document from one source to another, each adding their tracked changes and of course picking up ‘goodies’ from each OS etc contribute to corruption! I did a search of the Word board before I posted and had read JScher’s comments but must admit to not reading carefully and picking up on this bit: [indent]

---

My IT guy swears that there’s a “known bug” that causes Revision Tracking to crash and therefore the feature should not be used. I’ve got a bunch of engineers who would like to collaborate on written reports, and as long as we’re willing to bite the bullet and accept changes periodically, it seems to me we should have few problems, besides the usual Document Too Complex for Memory warning, which gives us warning we should have accepted changes by now. Have things changed hugely around the Word world or does this plan sound likely to work?

---

[/indent]

Just wondered if anyone could possibly confirm the position that track changes should never be used because they will eventually corrupt a document. TIA to all for any input

Reply | Quote

Where was this mentioned? And did the person who said this suggest any alternatives (such as retyping all the changes)?

Maybe this rumor also inspired this thread.

Reply | Quote