Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Turn off/stop/disable Final Showing Markup view in Word

This macro will make MS Word start up in "Final" as opposed to "Final
Showing Markup." It's quite annoying when Final Showing Markup is the
default view--this has to stop/be disabled; I hope that this is
addressed in the next version of Office. Back to the point, this macro
will take you back to the days of Word XP and stop the Final Showing
Markup view before it rears its ugly head.

Final Showing Markup *is* shown by default if changes are tracked on a
document. For example, edit a document of your own, track changes,
then send it to a friend. Even though your friend doesn't want to see
the markup, they *WILL* because it's there. This little VBA macro
makes it so that you won't see the markup by default anymore, and
instead will see the Final (without markup) view.

Just dump these lines into a module in your Normal template (hit
ALT+F11 to start up the Visual Basic Editor, right click Modules under
the -Normal- directory and add a Module). Since the name of this sub
is "AutoOpen," it will execute whenever you open a document.

''''''''' VB Start '''''''''
Sub AutoOpen()
With ActiveWindow.View
.ShowRevisionsAndComments = False
.RevisionsView = wdRevisionsViewFinal
End With
CommandBars("Reviewing").Visible = False
'''OPTIONAL: previous line turns off Reviewing toolbar
End Sub
''''''''' VB End '''''''''

Hope this helps!
jyeee

78 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy crap you're a livesaver. I never thought to try fixing this with a little VB. I figured there was a checkbox buried somewhere in the menu labyrinth to default "Showing Markup" to "off", but I guess not.

Thank you, thank you for this post.

Guhaprasath said...

Thank you Boss.... You are a Genius. Was tryin to work around it... Keep up the Good Work

Anonymous said...

thanks...

Anonymous said...

The macro was a good idea but most people are a bit warey of them for security reasons. Below is a link to a website that will tell you how to turn it off using words defaults.

A godsend.

www.twoorthree.net/2006/10/how_to_turn_off_1.html

Anonymous said...

The VB method is very cool, but I have a more numpty way of doing it.
I find that I can save the file with marks up OFF by doing the following:

1. open the offending document (e.g. FINAL.doc)
2. turn OFF the View > Markup option
3. Save the file with a different name (e.g. FINAL_nomarkups.doc

The re-named document then opens without showing markups.
Then you can just delete or rename the FINAL.doc to Draft.doc or whatever, and re-name your "FINAL_nomarkups.doc" as FINAL.doc

Hope that helps.

Victoria said...

Hallelujah!!! Your simple to follow instructions has kept me from the funny jacket and happy pills! It is amazing how annoying a little thing like the "Final Showing Markup" can be.
Bless you JYEEE!

Anonymous said...

Wow, this is really REALLY useful!
Thank you very much.
BTW in the Microsoft site they don't give this solution, theirs is per file :)

Anonymous said...

What a difference! I can't thank you enough!

Anonymous said...

By the way, I did try the other option someone listed in the comments at this link:www.twoorthree.net/2006/10/how_to_turn_off_1.html but it didn't change anything for me. I went with the VB option to finally fix this irritating little MS characteristic. Thanks Jason!

Anonymous said...

I can't seem to get Loughlin's simple 1-2-3 file renaming solution to work. Has anyone else? I do the steps, including deselecting View-Markup, and rename, and I still get the same behavior upon opening...Final Showing Markup.

Thanks,

Ryan

Anonymous said...

Man.. You are my personal jesus christ..keep up the good work!! Thank you!!!

Anonymous said...

theonly thing that worked for me is:

In Word 2003, Turn off the View Markup in following way: 1. Turn on TRK. 2. Change the View setting to Final. 3. Turn off TRK. 4. Save. The document reopens showing the Final without markup.

Anonymous said...

Got the solution for you! They have it buried in a maze of settings.

Go to your office button > Word Options (bottom right corner) > Trust Center(Left bar) > Trust Center Settings... > Privacy Options > Uncheck "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving" OK and your done!

-Cheers

Unknown said...

I can't get this to work on WORD 2002. Are the VBA variables different??

Glenn

Anonymous said...

To confirm and clarify what Tyler above said for Word 2003. After opening Word: Click on Tools menu, then Options, then Security. Clear the check mark from the "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving" check box. Click OK. This will apply to all Word docs not just one. Good luck.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, it worked for me too!

Anonymous said...

Still rolling along - man - this is just what I needed! (Word 2007)

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting this. Working with MS products is so annoying.

ബൈജു സുല്‍ത്താന്‍ said...

Thanks to Mr.Tylor..
I found ur solution is working fine. Easy to do,and it solved my Problem ! Thank a LOT

Anonymous said...

Hi VB script does not work in word 2007... any ideas...??

Anonymous said...

Brilliant..............it works on Word 2007 as well...
Kudos !!

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot to Joe's comment !!! Great work !!

Anonymous said...

Fantastic - that problem has been bugging me for ages!

What is it with Micrsoft - they give you an option to change/break just about every aspect of their crappy software and then for the one thing that you really want to disable... theres nothing.

Once again, no one up at MS HQ has given the slightest thought to what the users might actually want to do or done any kind of human testing.

It really drives me mad, as you can probably tell.

(the other top bug bear - STILL no decent print options in Outlook. You can only print ODD or EVEN pages. Why would I want to do that? Insane.)

JJ said...

Just use the code, works Great!!!

I used the following process in Word '07 running XP

1. Open up Microsoft Word 2007
2. Click on the Microsoft Office symbol in the upper left hand corner.
3. Click Open
4. Click on Trusted Templates
5. Click on the Normal document
6. Click on Open
7. Hit ALT+F11 to open up Visual Basic Editor
8. Click on Insert, then Module
9. Normal-Module 1 (Code) screen will open up. The drop down lists should read (General) and AutoOpen.
10. Paste the following code into the box:
''''''''' VB Start '''''''''
Sub AutoOpen()
With ActiveWindow.View
.ShowRevisionsAndComments = False
.RevisionsView = wdRevisionsViewFinal
End With
CommandBars("Reviewing").Visible = False
'''OPTIONAL: previous line turns off Reviewing toolbar
End Sub
''''''''' VB End '''''''''
11. Click on save
12. Close out of the Normal document template
You are finished. Open up a Word document that you know typically has markups. The document should now open up as Final.

Kwan said...

Thank you! It was very easy to fix the problem based on you advice.

David D. said...

Jason, after seeing comments from Microsoft's team all over the net with smarmy replies to the simple desire to REMOVE the markup from all documents, it's almost like I insult their work by desiring such a thing.

Frankly, I upgraded from an older version of Office with high hopes for greater functionality and an understandable need to "get with the times". But after seeing how annoying this stupid feature is, I am extremely glad your little trick works. I will blog about this myself, credits to you of course...cheers and thanks again. -David D.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your information. It really helps.

However, when I send out the document to friends, they still received it as Markup. Does it happened to yours? or depends on the receiver default? Thanks alot, mate.

jyeee said...

I appreciate your comments, especially the help from JJ & Aaron (http://aalthouse.wordpress.com/)

@Anonymous6/14/2009, this is just a hack to get around seeing it on your computer and your friend would have to change their doc template by following the same instructions.

Anonymous said...

OMG! I kept struggling with this and unchecking the box everyone told me to. Your fix helped me in 1 minute!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

Deus Ex Mamiya said...

Tyler's "hidden settings" method above worked perfectly for me (Vista 64, Office 2007). Cheers mate!

J.M. LeBlanc - Founder said...

Another thing that you can try is "Accepting All Changes". In the "Reviewing" Toolbar, hover until you see "Accept Change", hit the drop down arrow next to that button and choose "Accept All Changes in Document"

Then, make sure you turn OFF "Track Changes.

Done

Anonymous said...

OK. This sounds great. But what I need is the ability to see the comments when I get a doc back from someone, then be able to accept changes, delete comments, (or hide them), and carry on with my needs. THEN, when I get another document from someone with comments, I want to be able to see those. So, if I follow any of the instructions above, will it prevent me from seeing comments on ALL docs or just the one I made the changes to?

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

forgot to say....the 10/23/2009 comment/question is for WORD 2007, not 2003.

polymathstat said...

Thank you SO much, this has been so annoying for me!

Anonymous said...

Thank you, thank you, thank you! What a lifesaver.

Anonymous said...

Excellent. Thanks. It worked perfectly.

Unknown said...

Help! I am following instructions exactly, but when I open a doc it gives a visual basic error and says "Object variable or With block variable not set" - I cannot take another day of opening to markups!!

Thanks.

Simon Hatfield said...

Love your work! This has been annoying me for ages. Finally decided to do something about it and there was your post...waiting for me :) Thanks

Anonymous said...

I know how to go to security settings and save a document as "Final" on my own computer, but when I try to send it to someone else, it is showing as "Final showing markup".

I want to send the document and have someone open it with a different computer and have the document display as "final"

any solutions? Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Oh wow! You're awesome!!!!

Taylor Ling said...

Thanks for the code! Solved my problem instantly!

Anonymous said...

Switch off markup options

Word 2007
Start button > Word options > Trust Center > Trust Center settings > deselect "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving"

Unknown said...

Hey JASON, you saved my life pal... have been hunting for a possible checkbox to uncheck for ages now. This did the trick. Thanks again.

Anonymous said...

thanks anonymous!

Anonymous said...

Switch off markup options

Word 2007
Start button > Word options > Trust Center > Trust Center settings > deselect "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving"
2/22/2011 12:16 AM

Anonymous said...

Thank you!!

Anonymous said...

One step to add to the above string for Word 2007:

Start button > Word options > Trust Center > Trust Center settings > Privacy Options > deselect "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving"

The Green Stump said...

Jason,

Thanks for this simple solution! I've been working on my masters thesis, and this has been a very annoying problem for me. Your solution literally took me 30 seconds to implement! Great post...just what I was looking for.

-Matt-

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for the macro!!!

For the people having trouble with the sending the document to others and them still seeing the markup. It's simple enough to add the macro to the document like you did with the default template. Then the macro follows the document. I tested this a minute ago and it works great!

Rizal said...

YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!

THANKS DUDE...

Blada said...

This module saved me a load of time! Thank you!

Maria J. Henriques said...

It was so easy to create de module... What was difficult was to find out were the template "normal" was.
Thank you

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU!

Anonymous said...

OMG...I am soooo grateful for this string. Wasn't comfortable with going into the hidden coding aspect of the solution so I scrolled down and this one worked for me:

Anonymous said...

One step to add to the above string for Word 2007:

Start button > Word options > Trust Center > Trust Center settings > Privacy Options > deselect "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving"

THANNNNNNNNNK YOU!! I was beyond upset to discover this wretched, stupid Microsoft default setting -- what ARE those people smokin' up there in Seattle?

Whewwww...another Microsoft headache solved! Now I can actually get back to work.

Anonymous said...

this Final Showing Mark-Up setting would just not stop and made me want to throw my computer across the room. Thanks for your help!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Jyeee,

First of all, thank you for providing this VB script.I received a document from my supervisor after making the corrections. I want to view the document with "original showing markup" but word doesn't allow me to stay in that option for longtime. In few seconds it is going back to "finalshowing markup" option. I tried to insert your module in the normal folder but as I can see from your script I think it is not helpful for this purpose. Could you please suggest, how to modify your script to keep orginal showing markup view and also how to delete the created modules under the normal folder. Becuase if these module not working to solve my issue I want keep clear normal folder so I would like to know the way to delete the created modules. I cheked with right-click and menu options but couldn't able to figure out the way to delete.

Anonymous said...

You are the GREATEST! Thank you so much.

Anonymous said...

AWESOME! Fanks.

Anonymous said...

oh my lordy sir jason, you saved my life today with this. i was going f'ing bonkers on stupid MS word...show my comments by default, will ya? haha, man triumphs over science once again!

Anonymous said...

This was driving me freaking crazy, thanks!

Teo Hinojosa said...

you are the MAN! I'm now done yelling at my computer screen. thanks!

Anonymous said...

Totally worked! Thank you!

Nick said...

Thank God for that - it's been driving me mad!

I did have to uncheck all the selections in "Review/Show Markup" first though before the Trust Centre settings would save.

F. W. Murnau said...

5 1/2 years later and people are still using your fix. Give yourself an elephant stamp and a gold star!

Your naivety that MS would fix this shocker in future versions was sadly misplaced, however.

Jerry said...

Superb solution!

Stupid that Microsoft does not give the option to disable the function or changed it to FINAL for ever. Works a treat and makes working a lot easier!

Anonymous said...

This is great! Microsoft will never fix this problem since because everyone uses MS Word anyway there is no incentive to fix it. And you showed them how a simple macro can fix their stupidity! Kudos to you! This saves me paper because if I print in the "showing markup" format I get the wrong font sizes! Thank you so much!

Cass said...

Thank you so much, Cass

Ninjadorg said...

Just wanted to say this is brilliant, thank you!

Anonymous said...

From the bottom of my heart - thank you :)

Anonymous said...

Thank you. You made life much simpler.

LizR said...

THANKS!!!

:D

RickSails said...

My understanding was that displaying changes is deliberate to bring to the reader's attention that changes are being tracked. This is to encouraging the reader to accept or reject changes before sending it on to a third party.

If you are certain that you want to turn it off the display of changes in from Word 2010, click File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy. Deselect the "Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving" check box. (It might be an idea to then select the "Warn before printing, saving or sending a file..." check box).

Click OK to return to Word Options then click OK to return to Word.

Anonymous said...

Thank you! Works fine. Markup on opening was a real annoyance.
Phil

Anonymous said...

Only solution that worked. Thanks !!!

Anonymous said...

Easy to follow instructions. Thank you - exactly what I needed.

Unknown said...

Perfect, thank you so much

Alejandro Moncada Sucre said...

Excellent work around though to another MS glitch!

Mark said...

In the "Review" Ribbon, go over to the "Changes" section and drop down "Accept" Select "Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking" then save your document.