MS Word Review Tab

The Review tab comes after Mailings in Word's ribbon. It's built for checking, editing, and collaborating on documents — spelling and grammar checks, comments, tracked changes, comparing document versions, and protecting content.

It has eight groups: Proofing, Accessibility, Speech, Language, Comments, Tracking, Changes, Compare, and Protect.

1. Proofing Group

• Spelling & Grammar – Runs a full check of the document and flags spelling errors, grammar issues, and style suggestions (F7).
• Thesaurus – Opens a pane with synonyms for a selected word.
• Word Count – Shows page count, word count, character count, paragraph count, and line count for the whole document or a selection.
• Editor (Microsoft 365) – AI-powered writing assistant that checks grammar, clarity, conciseness, and tone, going beyond basic spell-check.

2. Accessibility Group

• Check Accessibility – Scans the document for issues that could make it hard for people using screen readers or other assistive technology (missing alt text on images, poor color contrast, unclear heading structure) and suggests fixes.

3. Speech Group

• Read Aloud – Has Word read the document's text out loud, useful for proofreading by ear or for accessibility.

4. Language Group

• Translate – Translates selected text or the entire document into another language.
• Language – Sets the proofing language for selected text, which determines which dictionary and grammar rules are used to check it.

5. Comments Group

• New Comment – Adds a comment bubble in the margin tied to selected text, without changing the actual document content (Ctrl+Alt+M).
• Delete – Removes a selected comment.
• Previous / Next – Jumps between comments in the document.
• Show Comments – Toggles the visibility of the comments pane.
• Resolve – Marks a comment thread as addressed/closed without deleting it, keeping a record while decluttering the view.

6. Tracking Group

• Track Changes – Turns on change tracking, so every edit (insertions, deletions, formatting changes) is recorded and shown with markup, attributed to the editor who made it (Ctrl+Shift+E).
• Display for Review – Switches between viewing modes: Simple Markup (clean view with change indicators in the margin), All Markup (shows every tracked change inline), No Markup (shows the document as if all changes were accepted), and Original (shows the document as if all changes were rejected).
• Show Markup – Choose exactly which types of changes to display (comments, insertions/deletions, formatting, or by specific reviewer).
• Reviewing Pane – Opens a separate pane listing every tracked change and comment in one scrollable list, with a running summary count.

7. Changes Group

• Accept – Accepts a tracked change (or all changes at once), making it permanent.
• Reject – Rejects a tracked change (or all changes at once), reverting to the original text.
• Previous / Next – Jumps between tracked changes one at a time for step-by-step review.

8. Compare Group

• Compare – Compares two versions of a document and generates a new document showing the differences between them as tracked changes — useful when you weren't using Track Changes originally but need to see what changed.
• Combine – Merges tracked changes and comments from multiple reviewers' copies of the same document into one master copy.

9. Protect Group

• Block Authors – Prevents specific co-authors from editing a selected section while a document is shared and being co-edited.
• Restrict Editing – Locks down the document to allow only specific types of changes (e.g., only comments, only form filling, or read-only), optionally with a password.

When You'll Actually Use This Tab

• Spelling & Grammar / Editor – Every document, before finalizing or sharing.
• Track Changes – Any collaborative editing where you need to see who changed what, like legal drafts, shared reports, or editor feedback on a manuscript.
• Comments – Giving feedback on someone else's document without altering their original text.
• Compare – Checking what changed between two versions of a contract or report when tracked changes weren't used originally.
• Restrict Editing – Sending out a form or template that should only be filled in, not restructured.