How to Turn On Track Changes in Word (Ctrl+Shift+E)

Pressing Ctrl+Shift+E, or Cmd+Shift+E on a Mac, flips Track Changes on or off for whatever document is currently open, switching between normal editing (where changes apply silently and immediately) and tracked editing (where every insertion, deletion, and formatting change is recorded with color-coded markup and attributed to whichever user account or name is set in Word's options). **Timing matters**: Track Changes only records edits made while it's active. If you've already made unmarked edits and then turn it on, those earlier changes are not retroactively flagged — they're already baked into the document as if you'd typed them with tracking off from the start. Always enable it before you begin editing a document you intend to return with visible changes, not partway through. **What gets tracked**: insertions appear underlined in the reviewer's assigned color, deletions appear as strikethrough text (or move to balloons in the margin depending on your Track Changes display settings), and formatting changes get their own separate notation. Comments are a related but distinct feature — they attach notes without altering the actual text, and work independently of whether Track Changes is on. **Display modes**: under the Review tab, you can switch between 'All Markup' (showing every tracked change inline), 'Simple Markup' (showing a clean-looking document with change indicators in the margin), 'No Markup' (a preview of what the document would look like if every change were accepted), and 'Original' (a preview as if every change were rejected) — switching display mode doesn't change whether tracking is recording edits, only how they're currently shown to you. **A common mistake**: assuming 'No Markup' view means changes are gone or accepted. They're still tracked and still present in the file; No Markup is purely a visual preview. Someone else opening the same file with 'All Markup' selected will still see every tracked change exactly as before. **Related shortcuts**: Ctrl+Alt+M (Cmd+Option+A on Mac) inserts a comment, often used alongside tracked changes during review. Moving between tracked changes sequentially via the Review ribbon's Next/Previous buttons is the standard way to process a document's edits one at a time before finalizing it. **Setting author name for attribution**: tracked changes are attributed to whatever name is configured under Word Options > General > Personalize your copy, so it's worth confirming this is set correctly to your actual name before starting a review, especially on a shared or work computer where a generic or previous user's name might still be configured. **Locking Track Changes with a password**: File > Protect Document > Restrict Editing includes an option to lock Track Changes on with a password, preventing anyone (including yourself accidentally) from turning it off without that password — a useful safeguard for a document being sent out for mandatory tracked review where you want to guarantee every edit gets recorded. **Combining with Compare Documents**: for reviewers who received a document without Track Changes ever having been enabled, Word's Compare feature (Review tab) can generate a tracked-changes-style diff between two versions of a file after the fact, which is a useful fallback when tracking wasn't turned on from the start of an edit.