Hello! A bit of background: I am interested in becoming a proofreader. There is no possible way I’d be able to use Word, but most people like the changes tracked. I just need to know this: if I download a document, change it with tracked changes, and upload it, and a person who is using Word downloads and opens it, will they see the changes correctly? I have heard of this ruining formatting in older versions of Word. Is this still a problem? Does it change depending on if you use a .doc or a .docx file? I absolutely want all bases covered here. Many thanks!
The track changes feature works like a charm. I used it many years ago in a mixed LO Writer/M$ Word team.
What you call “ruining formatting” may be an impression of it because the feature displays both overstriken sequences for deleted text and underlined sequences for added text, intermixed with unmodified text. These visual effects are controlled independently from styles.
Of course, since the tracked document has much more data in it (deleted, added and untouched text), the paragraph formatting is slightly changed. But this is temporary (in both applications). Once you accept the changes (in the final step of proofreading), everything goes back to “normal”.
The behaviour occurs while you are working on-screen. The backup format (.doc(x) or .odt) has nothing to do with it apart from keeping enough information for the feature.
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This is exactly what I needed, thank you!!
Edit: Will upvote when i get 5 points
Great answer; this should be a wiki contribution.