Track Changes in Excel disappearing and/or not showing after saving

[astp1560]

Hello, I have followed the instructions provided online for using Track Changes (Legacy) in excel; however, no matter how many times I try to change a cell and track it and make sure the highlight changes button is activated, excel is not recording certain changes that I've made. Can you please assist with this.

[#2]

Can you give more information and may supply a sample sheet that shows your issue? I just tested track changes in my sheet and it is still working for me. You say "certain changes", does that mean it is working for other changes? which changes does it not work for you? I believe it will only track value changes not format changes or changes in resulting values from formulas (only if you change the formula itself), is that your concern?

[#3]

@mtarler Yes, it is sporadic and would keep the highlighted changes in certain cells but not others. I checked and they are mainly text > text changes, no formulas or reformatting etc. Do you know how to resolve that? And in the case it is changes cells with formulas/reformatting, what is the process to fix that issue (if they are different)? Thanks.

[#4]

@astp1560  I don't know of problems with it and it is really hard to help without something I can re-create or maybe if you can show specific example.  There are a couple of menu things you should double check.  The main track changes menu:

gives many options based on when, who, and where.  make sure that isn't excluding the cells or people you are trying to track.  Another nice feature is the last item which is "List changes on a new sheet".  To use that FIRST hit save (it will only list items that have been saved) then go into this menu, click the box and click OK.  Then a new sheet is created with a log of each change that has been made.  This is particularly nice to see previous changes and not just the latest change.  Have you tried this?  Do those "missing" changes show up on this sheet?

Another menu to check is the Share Workbook (legacy) command window:

This feature has to be turned on to use the track changes but it is automatically enabled when you make changes in the other menu.  I believe the above example is the default value (30 days) and you might want to increase that.  Any chance the changes you are 'missing' have gone past that default 30 day tracking?

[#5]

I'm having the same issue. Upon returning to a workbook wherein I was tracking changes, none of them are showing up. There was a substantial number of changes that I will now have to address manually, unless someone has a fix. "When" is set to All, "Who" is set to Everyone.

It was working when I saved the document a few days ago.

I'm seeing evidence here and other sites that I'm not the only one facing this. I'm curious whether this a known issue in Excel, and, if so, whether a fix is pending.

[#6]

oddly enough I just tested this and opened the workbook to see my changes not highlighted even though I had time=all and who=everyone but THEN I unselected both hit OK and saw the changes highlighted again.
that said, you might want to try the NEW track changes feature offered in 365/sharepoint

[#7]

So there is some sort of odd behavior at work. How turning off the ability to see changes for all time and from everyone somehow enables that same capability is puzzling. In any case, I could not get that to work for me. Thankfully I have a list of all the changes, so I can reconstruct that aspect of the document. Tedious, but not like I have to start from scratch. So far as 365/SharePoint is concerned, I'm unfamiliar with it. To my knowledge, it's not currently in use at my company.

But the question remains, is this a known issue with MS Excel? If it is, then we can relax and wait for the fix. Keeping clients in the dark serves no purpose.

[#8]

I posted a request for help about 18 months ago. Nothing substantive has been forthcoming in the intervening year and a half.

My takeaway is that this function does not work. It would be nice if someone from Microsoft could confirm that this is an unresolved issue as I will have to explain this failure to a client.

[#9]

So I'm pretty sure this form of track changes is no longer actively supported. The new versions of excel keep the option around for compatibility but I doubt they will actively update it if it breaks. I would recommend you look into the new features and how to use those features instead. As for Microsoft response, this forum is mostly answered by us community members and not by microsoft employees and you would need to put in a 'ticket' directly to microsoft support for that. If you go to Help then contact support you should be able to send the problem there (still no guarantee you'll get a response). good luck.