Wired

A track changes tool with the following features:

1. Tracks changes without requiring you to remember to turn track changes on;
2. Provides a format for viewing changes that is easily decipherable;
3. Properly formats and paginates documents which incorporate changes;
4. Automatically mark-ups all changes made by external parties even when those parties have taken the document offline and made changes to it without using the “track changes” function i.e. no document comparison is required.
5. Allows for multiple external parties to make changes to a document at the same time and properly incorporates and tracks these changes upon their return.

Tired

Using track changes with a word processor

Where only one or two people are involved this process is workable. However, track changes is clunky and requires an in depth knowledge of word to properly use all the features available in this outdated tool.

Expired

Using track changes with multiple parties

Deciphering changes that have been made becomes even more difficult when external parties (i.e., counterparties) are involved. They may take your version of the document, make their corrections and send the document back with their changes purportedly marked. But they also may fail to properly mark-up all corrections.

The only way of knowing for sure what changes have been made is to run a document comparison. However, formatting and pagination errors generated in this process can be headache inducing and not all word processor software (e.g. Mac Pages) allows you to do this.  Also, having to do so each time a version is sent back to you is burdensome. This is particularly so when multiple external parties are sending back different marked-up versions of the same original simultaneously. It is also easy to lose important data such as details of which changes were made by whom at which times.  

This process is expired!

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