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.
This tutorial is also available as a YouTube video showing all the steps in real time.
Watch more than fifty other videos about Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat on my YouTube channel.
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.
How to Change Your User Name for Track Changes in Word
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.”
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
How to Stop Microsoft Word from Calling You “Author” in Track Changes
Thank you so much!!!
You are very welcome! Thank you for stopping by!
Is there a way to change the name for EXISTING comments? I need to change “Tom” to “Sue.” Thanks.
Hello, 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.
Thanks very much, Erin.
Most 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. “
Hello, 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.
perfect that worked well!
Excellent! Thank you for the feedback!
Thank 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.
Thank you for reading my post, Robert!
Hi, Erin. I appreciate your post. I am having trouble because I have track changes by author in Word 2016 and I am seeing other comments in the same color as my comments and using the trick below still has all comments in that same color. Any thoughts as to what I am missing? I went to the trust center and the names of the authors are still there (not just Author) so I am not sure why I am not seeing different colors for different authors. Thanks so much.
Hi, thank you for stopping by my site. In most cases, Word comment colors are stored on your computer rather than in a particular file. You can change the comment color for individual users by going to the Advanced Track Changes Options dialog box. You can get there by going to the Review tab > Tracking group dialog box launcher > Advanced Options button in the Track Changes Options dialog box. I hope that helps!
Thanks. I take it this changes the comment author permanently (until you manually set it back). That’s better than nothing, but it would be useful if you could just set it temporarily – that you change the author until this file is closed, and then it reverts back to the normal author.
Yes, this name change is permanent–at least until you change it again. However, I agree with you that it would be useful to have a more flexible option for individual files. Thank you for stopping by!
Hi Erin,
If a number of people are editing a Word document and one of us has inserted something as a tracked change and then accepted it as a permanent change, is there any way to know who made the change that has been accepted and now looks like a standard part of the document?
Hi, Beans. Thank you for reading my post. I’m not aware of a way to identify which person accepted a change after it has become a permanent part of the document.
However, if you believe that acceptance was the very last change made to the document, you can look at the Info tab in the Backstage view under “Last Modified By.” Beware, though: if someone else opened the document, created an accidental change and then reversed it, that person’s name will appear there even if his or her change didn’t become part of the document.
Or, if you are all working off the same document in OneDrive, you might be able to find that info in Revision History.
Best of luck!
Hi Erin:
I’m wondering if I’m having the same issue:
> When I go to Track Changes > Specific People > I’m listed twice.
> First Last
> Last, First
Is there a way to fix this in this document? Will the above fix it for future documents?
Thanks.
Selma
Hi, Selma. Thank you for visiting my site. I’m not aware of a way to correct your current double listing issue without losing your tracking. However, if you list your name as you want it in the Proofing tab of the Word Options dialog box and then ensure that “Always use these values regardless of sign in to Office” is checked, you should be listed correctly in future documents created on the same computer. Best of luck!
Hi Erin, is there a way to anonymise guests in their editing. I am hoping to use this feature to have an expert panel make comments – but without any members knowing the identity of their fellow panel members, Thanks, Tom
Hello, Tom. Thank you for visiting my blog. You can have each of the panelists change their own names as shown in this tutorial. Or, you can change all the names to “Author,” as shown in my other tutorial, How to Remove User Names from Existing Track Changes in Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of a way to create temporary guest names. (That would be a great feature, though!)
Best of luck!
~Erin