Boost Your Efficiency: How to Track Changes in PowerPoint

If you know how to track changes in a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation you’re well aware that it is a great way to work collaboratively with others, share feedback, and make revisions with just a couple of quick mouse clicks.

This can all be done by taking advantage of a few easy-to-use features in PowerPoint.

How do you track changes in PowerPoint?

The first thing to know is that PowerPoint doesn’t have an official Track Changes feature like the one found in Microsoft Word.

Instead, you can ask others to make changes and add comments to a shared presentation. Once changes have been made or recommended, you can compare and merge the shared copy with the original saved on your computer.

This process makes revising presentations efficient and seamless. Here are some other benefits:

• Quickly see exactly which parts of your presentation are being changed and who made the changes.
• Maintain comment threads to discuss changes.
• Working collaboratively makes it easier for everyone to stay on the same page and work towards a common goal
• Accept or reject changes with one click.

Overall, tracking changes in PowerPoint is an invaluable practice for managing your presentations and collaborating with others.

Step 1. Create a Copy of Your PowerPoint File

Let’s start with a quick tip. As a best practice, the first step to tracking changes in PowerPoint is to create a copy of your presentation. This is because you may want to compare the original copy and the reviewed file later on.

Open the PowerPoint presentation that you want to track changes for and click on File in the top of the screen. Next, click on Save As and choose a location to save the original presentation.

Step 2. Share Your Presentation with Others

Now that you have a copy of the original file, you need to share it with others so that they can make revisions.

To do this, click on File again and then click on Share. A new window will pop up. Select the people you want to collaborate on the project with and then click on Share.

You can then add your presentation to a shared location, like SharePoint or OneDrive.

Step 3. Tracking the Changes

Once you have started working together on a presentation, every time someone makes a change to your presentation, it will appear in the Revisions pane on the right side of your PowerPoint window.

Step 4. Compare and Merge Two Versions of the Same File

After everyone has had a chance to look at the presentation, you may go through the modifications and combine them with the copy you kept of the original.

To do this, start by opening the original version of your presentation. Click on the Review tab in the tool bar and then Compare.

In the Choose File to Merge with Current Presentation box, find the file that you collaborated on. Then, click Merge.

The Revisions pane will automatically open. This will show all comments and updates.

To look at updates in detail, click on each item in the Revisions pane.

Step 5. Accept or Reject Changes

Once you have reviewed all of the changes, you will need to decide if you want to accept or reject them.

After clicking an update from the Revisions pane, you can accept it by clicking the checkbox next to the Other Authors icon.

If you want to reject an update, simply leave this box unchecked.

Using the Comments Feature While Collaborating

As mentioned, you have the ability to use comments while collaborating with others. This can be extremely helpful for understanding why certain changes are being recommended.

How to Add New Comments

To add a new comment, click on the Review tab in the toolbar. Then, click the New Comment button.

The Comments pane will open on the right side of the screen. After typing your comment, press Enter on your keyboard to save it. This will apply a comment icon to the slide.

You can click and drag the icon if you want the comment to be related to a specific element of the slide.

How to Show or Hide All Comments

You can choose to show or hide all comment icons with a couple of quick clicks. Click the Review tab in the toolbar. Next, click the drop-down next to Show Comments and select Show Markup to toggle between showing and hiding the comment icons.

Reading and Deleting Comments

You can review comments in your presentation by clicking the forward and back comment icons in the Comments pane or in the toolbar under Review.

You can also click on a comment and reply to it.

If you’d like to delete an individual comment, you can click the X in the corner of that individual comment box in the Comment pane.

Save Your File

After you are done reviewing all the changes and you are satisfied with all updates, it’s time to save your file.

Simply click the File menu and choose the Save As option. Select a destination for your edited presentation, enter a file name, and click on the “Save” button to save your changes.

With these simple steps, you can easily track changes in your PowerPoint presentations and keep everything organized.

With these tips, you can easily keep track of all of the changes made to your presentations and ensure that everything runs smoothly. Tracking changes is a great way to keep track of who made what changes to your presentation and when those changes were made.

Conclusion

Tracking changes in your PowerPoint presentation is a great way to work on the same presentation with others, streamline presentation editing, and maintain a clear goal while completing a shared project.

Accepting and rejecting changes with one click will dramatically boost your efficiency and commenting within the same PowerPoint file means you can avoid wasted time sending unnecessary emails.

Do you collaborate on PowerPoint presentations? Do you have an interesting or unique way of using tracked changes in PowerPoint or any other features? If so, how do you use these features? Leave a comment below and let me know!