Hey folks,

When I use the Track Changes feature in Word 2013 (running on Windows 8.1), and I create a new Comment, my name temporarily appears as the Author, but when I close and re-open the document, it switches the Author name to "Author" instead of my name. Also, my picture disappears in favor of a generic icon.

What is going on here? FYI, I'm logged into Windows 8.1 using my Microsoft Account. I'm not sure if that matters. It seems to be pulling my name and account picture correctly, until I close and re-open the document.

See the following screenshot: I changed some formatting, closed and re-opened the document, then inserted a new comment. My name shows up correctly when I make a new change, but disappears after closing the document.

Cheers,

Trevor Su

Here's what I see if I hover over the tracked change (ignore the blacked out parts, for privacy).

Please go to Review Tab > Click the icon in right-bottom of Tracking section > Check and tick the box of "Pictures By Comments" to solve the problem.

Cheers,
Tony Chen
Forum Support
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The Pictures By Comments checkbox is checked by default, and is still checked. What makes you think that, that would fix the issue? Did you also notice that the author name is disappearing?

Try the following: Open the affected document. Click File tab | Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings | Privacy Options. Clear the check box next to "Remove personal information from file properties on save" and click OK.

Stefan,

You are a winner! Unchecking the "Remove personal information from file properties on save" checkbox solved the issue. Thanks for understanding the issue, and solving it!

I'm glad I could help!

Note that the "Remove personal information..." option gets selected after you have run the Document Inspector on a document. You have to clear the option manually, or it will be sticky (as you have noticed).

Oh,I see. I've got the new point from the post as well. Thank you for your information, Stefan:)

Tony Chen

Why? What purpose does this serve in a collaborative en

Hello Stefan,

Thank you for sharing your knowledge, however, my box is unchecked and my user name is still not showing. This is the first time this has happened. I appreciate your help.

• Edited by jdhamie Wednesday, October 29, 2014 2:09 PM

Hello Stefan,

Thank you for sharing your knowledge, however, my box is unchecked and my user name is still not showing. This is the first time this has happened. I appreciate your help.

• Edited by jdhamie Wednesday, October 29, 2014 2:09 PM

Hello Stefan,

Thank you for sharing your knowledge, however, my box is unchecked and my user name is still not showing. This is the first time this has happened. I appreciate your help.

Which version of Word are you using? If it is Word 2013, verify that your user name is correct on the General tab of File | Options and also select the option to "Always use these values regardless of sign in to Office."

Yep.  Since the "Remove personal information..." option is greyed out with the Document Inspector, this was the trick that fixed it for me.

Thanks to both Stefan & Tony.  Between the two of you, I was able to find the flag and correct the problem.

Can you tell me why the "Remove personal information..." option is greyed out and how it could be made active ?  I tried using the document inspector but to no avail.  How do I ungrey it ?

Can you tell me why the "Remove personal information..." option is greyed out and how it could be made active ?  I tried using the document inspector but to no avail.  How do I ungrey it ?

Do the following to start the Document Inspector in Word 2013: Click File | Info | Check for Issues | Inspect Document. In the list of content, make sure that "Document Properties and Personal Information" is checked and then click the Inspect button. Click Remove All (next to the "Document Properties..." item). Save, close and reopen the document. From then on, your user name will be replaced with "Author" each time you reopen the document.

Our office has been struggling with a related problem that maybe you can solve. Basically, the same person is repeatedly given a different reviewer name as they work in a document (presumably every time the document is autosaved). For example, if I work for an hour adding edits or comments on a document by the time I'm ready to share it it will look like five different people made changes.

The Inspect Document fix works great to remove all the extra reviewer names, but it changes them all to 'Author'. Do you know how to then either a) change 'Author' to the reviewer's actual name or b) stop Office from assigning multiple names to the same reviewer. Also, we've tried checking 'Always use these values regardless of sign in' under General to no avail.

Thanks - your fix is the closest we've come to a solution and it's greatly appreciated.

You can change the author names for comments using a simple VBA sub such as the following:

Sub ChangeCommentUserNamesInWordDoc()
'Macro created by Stefan Blom, Word MVP
Dim c As Comment
For Each c In ActiveDocument.Comments
c.Author = "Donald Donaldson"  'specify the name here
Next c

'NOTE: The Author property is hidden in the Word 2013
'object model, which means that it won't be supported
'in the future.
End Sub

Changing the user names for revisions is a bit more complex. If your files are in the *.docx format, you can edit the reviewer names by modifying the document.xml file. (To access document.xml you have to change the filename extension from DOCX to ZIP so that you can ope

Stefan; 

Thanks that seems to have worked... This setting seems to have changed without provocation in my org!?  Is the only way to make an org wide setting change through office GPOs, to your knowledge?

Stefan; 

Thanks that seems to have worked... This setting seems to have changed without provocation in my org!?  Is the only way to make an org wide setting change through office GPOs, to your knowledge?

The "Remove personal information..." setting is document-specific. It gets selected after you run the Document Inspector on a document and choose to remove "Document Properties and personal information."

I'm having a similar problem and the above solution didn't work. For this particular Word file (Word 2013), my name and time stamp disappear on balloon comments when I reopend it, although new comments had my name and time stamp. (Of course I don't know what will happen to those new comments!)  Not only this, but when I used the Compare feature to another document, it would only come in Draft mode. I was unable to unclick the Draft icon.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

• Edited by drtravel47 Sunday, June 14, 2015 3:13 PM

I'm having a similar problem and the above solution didn't work. For this particular Word file (Word 2013), my name and time stamp disappear on balloon comments when I reopend it, although new comments had my name and time stamp. (Of course I don't know what will happen to those new comments!)  Not only this, but when I used the Compare feature to another document, it would only come in Draft mode. I was unable to unclick the Draft icon.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

• Edited by drtravel47 Sunday, June 14, 2015 3:13 PM

I'm having a similar problem and the above solution didn't work. For this particular Word file (Word 2013), my name and time stamp disappear on balloon comments when I reopend it, although new comments had my name and time stamp. (Of course I don't know what will happen to those new comments!)  Not only this, but when I used the Compare feature to another document, it would only come in Draft mode. I was unable to unclick the Draft icon.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

• Edited by drtravel47 16 hours 6 minutes ago

I'm having a similar problem and the above solution didn't work. For this particular Word file (Word 2013), my name and time stamp disappear on balloon comments when I reopend it, although new comments had my name and time stamp. (Of course I don't know what will happen to those new comments!)  Not only this, but when I used the Compare feature to another document, it would only come in Draft mode. I was unable to unclick the Draft icon.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

• Edited by drtravel47 16 hours 6 minutes ago

Hi Stefan,

Would you be able to offer a global solution within the Word options to keep the personal user name for comments and track changes instead of the document specific fix? If possible, I would prefer to not have to manually uncheck "Remove personal information..." for my name to display in the comments.

Thank you kindly,

Erin

Hi Stefan,

Would you be able to offer a global solution within the Word options to keep the personal user name for comments and track changes instead of the document specific fix? If possible, I would prefer to not have to manually uncheck "Remove personal information..." for my name to display in the comments.

Thank you kindly,

Erin

If "Remove personal information..." is selected in all of your documents, then the Document Inspector has been run on the template you are using for new documents. Or perhaps you are using an existing document as a "template," by creating new documents from that document via File | Save As?

In either case, what you have to do is deselect the option in whatever file you use as the basis for new documents. That fixes the problems for future documents based on the file in que

hello stefan.

u r sooo helpful! thank u - it worked wonders for me!  however, i would like the previous changes/commens to also show my personal name; those still show as author - is that even possible to see my name for old changes/comments?  

i am new to this... how will i receive my response?  to my email - or must i check this thread?  thanks again.

Changing the name for comments is easy. See the macro I posted above.

Changing the author for revisions/tracked changes requires XML-knowledge and it is beyond my skills. Someone else may know how to do this s