2009-06-04

How to make keyboard shortcuts for Accept Revision and Next Revision in Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac

I find the native interface for working with tracked changes in MS Word 2008 to be unbearably clumsy. You have to turn on the Reviewing toolbar and then click an icon to get to the next tracked change, then click another icon to accept the change, and then repeat, which gets to be quite a clickapalooza with a long document with lots of changes.

I prefer to hit one keyboard shortcut to move to the next tracked change, then hit another keyboard shortcut to accept the change. For some reason Microsoft didn't bother to include these keyboard shortcuts. To set them up:

  • Choose View -> Customize Toolbars and Menus
  • Click the Keyboard button
  • In the Categories box select Tools
  • In the Commands box select AcceptChangesSelected
  • Click in the box for "Press new keyboard shortcut" and then hit your preferred key combo. Be sure not to use a combo that is already assigned to something because it just won't work.
  • Click the Assign button.
To make a keyboard shortcut to jump to the next tracked change just repeat, but this time select NextChangeOrComment in the Commands box.

I also like to have a keyboard shortcut for toggling track changes off and on. For that select ToolsRevisionMarksToggle in the Commands box.