Word comes with a “red pen” to make proofreading more efficient.
Proofreading is a delicate balance. If you just make corrections, then the original author may not agree with your new version. Then one is stuck trying to open multiple copies of the same file. What you need is a digital “red pen” to leave comments and suggestions without editing the actual text.
Word has this! Here’s how to use it:
- 1. Place your cursor where you want to leave a comment. If you want to suggest corrections for whole phrases or sentences, just highlight the whole text in question.
2. Click the Insert menu.
3. Click Comment.
4. A comment box will open in the margin. Type your suggestions here.
5. Click back in the main text to continue.
If you receive a comment-filled file, you can easily view the file without the “mark-ups.” Normally, when you open a file that contains comments, the Reviewing toolbar will open automatically. The leftmost part of this toolbar will give you your display options:
To view without the comments, just select Final from this toolbar.
To view with the comments, select Final Showing Markup.
If you really want to do hardcore proofreading and reviewing, this toolbar holds multiple features that you should explore. However, for most of us, having this digital “red pen” to suggest corrections to others is a helpful way to proofread word documents.
