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I often give feedback on lots of documents with Word. Unfortunately, if a document was saved without tracking changes, I have to (remember to) turn it on. Unfortunately, it happens too often that I begin correcting a document and realize 10+ changes in that I have not enabled tracking.

The solution, of course, is to save the document and then do a compare.

But the Compare workflow is click-heavy. It has no default to use the current document for one of the documents in the compare. I have to save the current document to a new file (not so bad), but then I have to select the old and new files through a file dialog (that is really clicky).

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My question: is there a faster way to recover the changes you've made after forgetting to turn on track changes?

Most software source code editors accept the current document as one of the files for a compare operation, but it seems Word always wants a saved file (and its GUI is too dumb to propose the file that was recently or is currently opened as a default or even at the top of the alphabetical list of files).

Another solution would be a way to have "Track changes" enabled on any document I open. However, from reading this I get the impression that it's only settable for new documents.

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Another solution would be a way to have "Track changes" enabled on any document I open.

I found a way, which also works to tolerate the case of turning on Track Changes when a document is in "Protected view" (ActiveDocument is invalid in the standard Document_Open handler, and you have to catch the right event).

Here's the VBA Macro that needs to go in ThisDocument for the Normal project:

Private WithEvents app As Word.Application

Private Sub Document_Open()
    Set app = Word.Application
    ' Force track changes
    ' On error resume next, since Protected View Document_Open has different context
    On Error Resume Next
    ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = True
End Sub

' see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/hh128817(v=office.14).aspx
Private Sub app_ProtectedViewWindowBeforeClose(ByVal PvWindow As ProtectedViewWindow, ByVal CloseReason As Long, Cancel As Boolean)
    Select Case CloseReason
      Case wdProtectedViewCloseEdit
        ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = True  'safe to turn on here
    End Select
End Sub

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