Change Tracking in Microsoft Visio

When you’re working on a project within a team, or simply collaborating with others on a Visio document, it’s easy to track and review changes using the Review task pane and Review toolbar. Visio gives each reviewer a separate color overlay so they can add comments, shapes, or use FreeHand markup on a Visio diagram. Any change made your way can be incorporated or rejected by the project manager.

change tracking

To see the changes made to a document, you need to activate Markup Tracking mode. This can be accomplished by going to the Tools menu and clicking Mark Tracking. A colored band appears around the drawing workspace, and both the Review task pane and toolbar appear along with a message box indicating that the project is ready for review.

If you want to edit the original drawing, Mark Tracking mode must be turned off. To disable Review Tracking mode, simply click the Review Tracking button at the bottom of the Review task pane, or use the Tools menu as before.

Any revisions made to the drawing and markup mode is turned on are actually done on the overlay that Visio has assigned. This will not affect the original drawing until a shape is copied or moved from the overlay.

Adding comments

Comments can be added by clicking Insert Comment in the Review task pane and typing in the bubble that appears. If a Visio drawing has many pages and your comment refers to a specific page, that page must be selected before commenting. When you’re done typing, click to deselect text mode and leave the comment in place.

To add a new shape to a drawing, simply drag it from the corresponding template. The shape will be identified with its markup color and added shape words in the review task pane. You can only change or remove your own markup; although other reviewers’ markup can be seen, only the author can change it.

Add freehand notation

FreeHand markup can be added to a Visio drawing using an annotation method called “Ink.” This allows you to add handwritten notes and shapes to a drawing; they can even be added to a custom template if you plan to reuse them. To use FreeHand markup, select the Ink tool on the proofing toolbar. A small Ink toolbar appears, containing different link colors, a line width tool, and an eraser. Choose the tool you want to use and use the mouse to draw or write whatever you want, then select the pointer tool from the standard toolbar when you’re done.

The review task pane can be used to display reviewer overlays by selecting the appropriate tab. To see all proofers’ marks superimposed on the original drawing, click the Original tab, and to hide it, click Hide All.

Accept changes from a reviewer

To update the drawing when comments and changes have been added to the marks, the Mark Tracking mode must first be turned off. Use Markup Tracking in the Review task pane to do this, then click the tab of the reviewer whose changes you want to add. Visio will select all the shapes on the tab by default, but if you don’t want to add all of them, you can select the appropriate shapes with your mouse.

When you’ve selected the shapes you need, click Copy, select the Original tab, and choose Paste to paste the shapes in the center of the drawing. They can simply be dragged into position using the markup overlay as a reference point if needed.

To quickly move from one mark to the next, you can use the Next Mark tool; this can be found in both the Review task pane and the toolbar. Marks can be removed using the Remove button on the same toolbar.