Use Color Highlight As A Document Guide

I’ve just updated a huge office instruction manual and I want the staff to review only the parts I’ve changed. I can’t think of an easy way to accomplish that. Any ideas?

I’d suggest using Word’s Highlight tool as a graphic guide. It’s not only effective, it’s easy to use. As you know you can highlight a word or a section of a document and then click on the Highlight icon, which provides a range of colors.

If you want to highlight many sections scattered throughout the document, first click on the color of your choice and then go through the document and highlight each with the mouse. When done, just click again on the icon.

I know what you’re thinking: Great, so now my colleagues have to go through the whole manual to find the highlighted section.

No, there’s a fast way to do that, too. Use the Find tool (Ctrl+F) and click on More , Format and select Highlight . Then click on Find Next . When done, click on No Formatting and then on Cancel .

And now, if I can anticipate your next question, you probably want to be able to easily remove the colored highlights. The quick way is to use Find and Replace (Ctrl+H). But before you open it, click on the Highlight icon and select None . Then press Ctrl+H and click on Find what , pick Format and then Highlight . In the Replace with box, pick Format and then Highlight , Replace All and click on OK . When done, click on No Formatting and Close .

I suppose you now want to print the document—but without all the colors, right? That’s easy. Click on Tools , Options , select the View tab and in the Show section clear the check from Highlight and then click on OK .