Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Word, Project) · IACT Training Blog
Collaborating on a document still goes wrong in the same old ways: conflicting edits, lost comments and a final version nobody trusts. Word 2026 tackles this with mature Track Changes plus genuinely real-time co-authoring, so multiple people can work on the same document at once and still produce a clean result.
Track Changes, done properly
Track Changes records every insertion, deletion and formatting change, attributing each to its author with a timestamp. Turn it on from the Review tab, then choose how to display markup, All Markup shows everything, Simple Markup keeps the page readable with a margin indicator, and No Markup previews the clean final text.
Reviewers add comments to discuss without altering the text, and resolve them when handled. When editing is done, the author or editor accepts or rejects each change, individually or all at once. Locking Track Changes with a password ensures contributors cannot quietly turn it off, which matters for contracts and regulated documents.
Real-time co-authoring in 2026
Store the document in OneDrive or SharePoint and multiple people can edit simultaneously. Word 2026 shows collaborators’ cursor positions and selections live, and a Follow Mode lets you track another person’s position through the document during a review call.
- See who is in the document and exactly where they are working.
- Automatic conflict resolution when two people edit the same section.
- Comments and @mentions to assign follow-ups directly to colleagues.
- Version History to roll back to any earlier state with confidence.
AI-assisted review
Word 2026 layers AI on top of collaboration. It can summarise long documents or threads, suggest edits, and help draft responses, which is useful when you return to a heavily marked-up file and need to grasp what changed quickly. As always, treat AI suggestions as drafts to review, not edits to accept blindly.
A clean collaboration workflow
Agree one master copy in the cloud rather than emailing attachments around, the root cause of version chaos. Use Track Changes for formal review cycles and live co-authoring for fast joint drafting. Resolve comments as you go, accept changes in a final pass, then turn Track Changes off and save a clean version for distribution.
Train with IACT
IACT’s Microsoft Office courses cover Word, PowerPoint and Project to advanced level. Learn the collaboration and automation features that save hours every week.