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Microsoft Word - Offline Collaboration/Co-Author Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by

Basic things asked by users when collaborating offline by utilizing the Track Changes and/or Compare/Combine features in the Review Ribbon

This is a draft cheat sheet. It is a work in progress and is not finished yet.

Prepar­ation For Offline Collab­oration

Ensure one person is the Document Manager for the specific document. (If there's no main author, secretary, etc)
Any structure is to be decided before collab­ora­tion, or edited during compiling session
Create special folder to store all versions
Enable Track Changes before sharing the file
Upon receiving file to edit, Save As before editing

Enable Track Changes

You can edit as usual after enabling the function
  

Editing After Track Changes Enabled

Check comments first. Someone might need specific editing by you
Make sure not to modify the structure of the document (eg deleting a row or column in a table). Instead, use comment
Use Styles for consis­tencies instead of manual formatting
In case of conflict, just add comments. Let the document manager do the necessary work
Turn on Autosave

Combining Prepar­ation

If editing via shared folder, commun­icate with everyone to stop editing
If they need to edit, either wait for them to edit, or they have to wait for your compiling process
Store all versions in a new folder, named with version and date (eg 
v1 250823
)
Use the Combine function in MS Word to start combining
 

Using MS Word Combine Function

Close current open document. Go to Review > Compare > Combine.

Combine Process

Accept
Accept current change
Reject
Reject current change