Annoying Visual Aids in Word (and why you might want them)

Markup from Track Changes

First of all, know that whether or not you see editing markup tracked with Track Changes, it’s there. It may show up when exporting to other programs like Adobe. The only way to actually get rid of the markup is to accept or reject the changes.That said, many of you like the best of both worlds. All the benefits of Track Changes with none of the visual noise. The problem is that even if you save it with no markup showing, it opens in all its colorful glory. Because markup will travel with a document until it’s accepted or rejected, this is a feature to protect you from accidentally sending documents outside your company with potentially undesired comments or editing accessible. To turn this feature off go to Options from the File tab or Office Button. Choose Trust Center, Trust Center Settings, and then Privacy Options. Look for Document-specific settings and uncheck Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving. You must still change the markup settings to whatever “no markup” state you want to use in order for it to work.

Tabs, Page & Section Breaks

Personally, I’m a fan of showing all these marks, especially if I’m working with multiple section breaks. However, it is easily turned off and on by clicking the Show/Hide button in the Paragraph group on the Home tab. There’s a shortcut for it, too! Ctrl+* or Ctrl+Shift+8. The same shortcut turns it on or off.

The Navigation Pane

When most of us got Word 2010 and saw that Navigation pane appear on the left of our Word screen, we just turned it off, mostly because we didn’t know what it did! If you use heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.), you REALLY want to leave the Navigation pane showing. You’ll notice that each heading appears as a button there. Better than that, if you are using Heading 2 and Heading 3, your document sections become collapsible! To turn it back on, click the Navigation Pane check box on the View tab in the Show group.