Have you ever wanted (or needed) to be an incognito editor, a covert reviewer, or a clandestine collaborator? If so, this post is for you—or for your secret identity—because it demonstrates how to change your user name for Track Changes in Microsoft Word.
The images below are from Word for Office 365, which is currently the same as Word 2019. The steps are the same in Word 2016, Word 2013, and Word 2010, however, your interface may look slightly different in those older versions of the software.
Important Note: These steps must be completed before you use Track Changes because they don’t change the name associated with existing edits or comments. Word doesn’t have a straightforward way to change user names connected to existing edits or comments.
However, you can replace user names with the default label Author for all existing and future edits and comments, as shown in “How to Remove User Names from Existing Track Changes in Microsoft Word.”
How to Change Your User Name for Track Changes in Word
1. Select the Review tab in the ribbon.
2. Select the dialog box launcher in the Tracking group.
3. Select the Change User Name button in the Track Changes Options dialog box.
4. Change the user name and/or the initials in the Word Options dialog box.
Pro Tip: You can also open the Word Options dialog box by selecting the File Tab followed by Options in the backstage view.
5. Check the box in front of “Always use these values regardless of sign in to Office” if you want to save these changes for future documents.
6. Select the OK button to save your changes.
Your updated user name should now appear when you add new comments and edits.
Further Reading: How to Change Your Name for New Comments and Markups in Adobe Acrobat DC
aflsjdlfj says
October 21, 2016 at 1:55 pmThank you so much!!!
Erin Wright says
October 21, 2016 at 1:58 pmYou are very welcome! Thank you for stopping by!
Stacy Ann Bussy says
January 9, 2017 at 10:22 amIs there a way to change the name for EXISTING comments? I need to change “Tom” to “Sue.” Thanks.
Erin Wright says
January 9, 2017 at 1:02 pmHello, thank you for visiting my blog. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn’t offer a straightforward way to change the name for existing comments in Word. I hope they will offer that option in the future.
Stacy Ann Bussy says
January 9, 2017 at 1:08 pmThanks very much, Erin.
Bob Dobbs Jr. says
August 16, 2017 at 4:17 pmMost of what Microsoft offers isnt straightforward but there is almost always a way.
” Change all existing Track Changes authors to one name:
1. Save a copy of the original Track Changes document, name it V1, and reject all Track Changes in it.
2. Save a copy of the original Track Changes document, name it V2, and accept all Track Changes in it. If not accepted now, they will be accepted later on in the Word Compare process.
3. Open V1 in Word > Review tab > Compare > Compare.
4. In the “Compare Documents” dialog, navigate to and select V1 as Original Document, and then V2 as Revised Document; type desired name after “Label changes with”; after “Show changes in,” select “New document,” click OK. “
Erin Wright says
August 17, 2017 at 7:44 amHello, Bob. Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, these steps only change the user name for insertions and deletions. They don’t change the user name for existing comments, at least not in Word 2016. Hopefully Microsoft will provide a solution in a future version of Word.
David Zeidman says
February 20, 2018 at 2:26 amperfect that worked well!
Erin Wright says
February 20, 2018 at 8:35 amExcellent! Thank you for the feedback!
Robert says
December 7, 2018 at 9:00 amThank you for this post. Tagging changes with a different names allowed me to tag document changes related to different projects where we were not certain which project would finish first. Using this feature and some creative file copying allowed us to push through changes for the first finished project and then the next afterwards without having to maintain multiple copies/versions of the same document.
Erin Wright says
December 7, 2018 at 3:24 pmThank you for reading my post, Robert!