Word 2007 Changes Format of Random Characters when Deleting Bulleted Point with Track Changes On
I am having problems with unwanted format changes when track changes is turned on in Word 2007. So far it has been on several machines, in all documents, including brand new documents. I've tried different styles, deleting Normal, different printer drivers...
To reproduce:
*Open a new Word document - Create a bulleted list with the following:
- Sentence with red font
- Sentence with green font
- Sentence with blue font
*Turn on track changes - place cursor at beginning of first bulleted sentence and use Delete to erase through the paragraph mark at the end of the first line.
At this point in our documents, the format of the second line changes and two or three characters in the third line also change font format. This does not happen when you perform the same edits without track changes turned on.
Does anyone know why this happens and how to work around it? Is my only option to tell the users to stop using the Delete key and only use Backspace? In working documents, the changes are more subtle - random italicized or bolded characters - and it takes forever to visually check every paragraph for these changes. Turning off track changes while editing is not an option at the moment.
Thanks!
To reproduce:
*Open a new Word document - Create a bulleted list with the following:
- Sentence with red font
- Sentence with green font
- Sentence with blue font
*Turn on track changes - place cursor at beginning of first bulleted sentence and use Delete to erase through the paragraph mark at the end of the first line.
At this point in our documents, the format of the second line changes and two or three characters in the third line also change font format. This does not happen when you perform the same edits without track changes turned on.
Does anyone know why this happens and how to work around it? Is my only option to tell the users to stop using the Delete key and only use Backspace? In working documents, the changes are more subtle - random italicized or bolded characters - and it takes forever to visually check every paragraph for these changes. Turning off track changes while editing is not an option at the moment.
Thanks!
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I was able to confirm it as well, and during my testing when I followed your instructions about 3 times and undid the changes, Word 2007 crashed. and is now having trouble restarting. So, it is not you.
Has this been happening long or since an update or patch?
This appears to be a bug in Word 2007, as it should not cause it to crash with Internal Data Integrity errors.
My guess is that is has something to do with the way Word stores its formatting in the paragraph markers, so I've allowed Word to send a crash report. Whether we get a fix is anyone's guess.
Another option as a workaround would be to turn track changes off, and save the documents with version numbers. Then when each set of changes is completed, run a Compare from the Review ribbon. The only problem with this is that if one person always runs the compare and merges the changes, I'm not sure the Track Changes will show which changes were made by each person. If that is not critical, this is an option for you.
I would think that this needs a ticket to Microsoft's support to fix. @Yobri, do you agree?
Has this been happening long or since an update or patch?
This appears to be a bug in Word 2007, as it should not cause it to crash with Internal Data Integrity errors.
My guess is that is has something to do with the way Word stores its formatting in the paragraph markers, so I've allowed Word to send a crash report. Whether we get a fix is anyone's guess.
Another option as a workaround would be to turn track changes off, and save the documents with version numbers. Then when each set of changes is completed, run a Compare from the Review ribbon. The only problem with this is that if one person always runs the compare and merges the changes, I'm not sure the Track Changes will show which changes were made by each person. If that is not critical, this is an option for you.
I would think that this needs a ticket to Microsoft's support to fix. @Yobri, do you agree?
I agree, it should most definitely make its way on to MS' radar.
ASKER
I'll contact Microsoft and update if they are able to provide a useful workaround. Thank you both!
ASKER
Thanks for your response!