Understanding Tracked Changes
Tracked changes are the foundation of collaborative document editing. When you enable Track Changes in Microsoft Word, every edit gets recorded: insertions show as colored text, deletions appear as strikethrough, and each change carries the reviewer's name and timestamp.
The problem isn't recording changes. The problem is managing them.
A document that's been through three rounds of negotiation might have hundreds of tracked changes from multiple reviewers. Reviewing each one—understanding what it does, whether it's acceptable, and how it interacts with other changes—is tedious, time-consuming work.
How DocMods Handles Track Changes
Read Existing Changes
Upload a document with tracked changes and DocMods reads every revision mark. It understands:
- Who made each change (reviewer attribution)
- What was changed (inserted text, deleted text, formatting)
- Where in the document the change occurs
- How changes interact with each other
Summarize Changes
Ask DocMods to summarize what's been changed. Get a clear overview:
- "12 insertions and 8 deletions across 4 sections"
- "Payment terms changed from net-60 to net-30"
- "Indemnification clause expanded to include IP infringement"
- "3 comments from opposing counsel requesting clarification"
Recommend Actions
DocMods can advise on each change based on your criteria:
- Accept — The change is standard, improves the document, or aligns with your position
- Reject — The change introduces risk, deviates from your standards, or weakens your position
- Flag for review — The change requires human judgment on strategy or business terms
Execute Decisions
Tell DocMods what to do:
- "Accept all formatting-only changes"
- "Reject the deletion in the liability section"
- "Accept changes from Sarah but reject changes from the external reviewer"
- "Accept everything and give me a clean document"
Common Scenarios
Post-Negotiation Cleanup
After receiving a redlined contract back from the counterparty, you need to review their proposed changes. Upload the document, ask DocMods to summarize the changes, and systematically work through each one.
Multi-Reviewer Documents
When a document has been reviewed by multiple people—an attorney, a business lead, and a compliance officer—the track changes can become overwhelming. DocMods helps sort through changes by reviewer, section, or type.
Final Version Preparation
Before sending a document for signature, you need a clean version with all accepted changes applied and all rejected changes removed. DocMods produces the final clean copy.
Change Impact Analysis
Before accepting a batch of changes, understand their cumulative effect. DocMods can explain how accepting a set of changes will alter the document's meaning, obligations, or risk profile.
Working With Comments
Track changes often come with comments. DocMods handles the full comment workflow:
Reading Comments
DocMods reads all comments in the document and can summarize them, categorize them by topic, or list action items.
Responding to Comments
Reply to reviewer comments through DocMods. It adds properly threaded replies that appear in Word's comment sidebar.
Resolving Comments
Mark comments as resolved when they've been addressed. DocMods can also identify which comments have been addressed by accepted changes and suggest resolving them.
Deleting Comments
Remove comments that are no longer needed. Clean up comment threads before sending the document to the next reviewer.
The Track Changes Format
DocMods works with Word's native OOXML track changes format. This means:
- Changes created by DocMods appear identical to changes made in Word
- Existing changes from Word are fully preserved
- Attribution, timestamps, and change types are standards-compliant
- Documents work in Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice, and any OOXML-compatible editor
This isn't a proprietary format or a screenshot annotation. It's the same track changes format that legal professionals, editors, and corporate teams have used for decades.
Start Managing Track Changes
Upload a document with tracked changes. Ask DocMods to summarize, recommend, or execute—then download the result. Every change is transparent, every decision is yours.
