Easily switch between editing, reviewing, and viewing documents in Word

[Nathan_Pfeifer]

Kimberley Chua, Product Manager on the Word team is excited to share that they've made it even easier to switch between editing, reviewing, and viewing your documents in Word for Windows.

Switch between editing, reviewing, and viewing

Have you ever been concerned about making unintended changes while reviewing a file written by a colleague? Use Viewing mode and be assured that you won’t be able to type on the canvas while reading the document. Switch to Reviewing mode to turn on Track Changes Just Mine and leave behind tracked changes in the document (or leave comments) when you want to offer suggestions.

We’ve updated Word for Windows so you can now easily change between modes with a couple clicks.

How it works

1. Open any Word document for which you have edit permissions.
2. Click the Editing button in the ribbon (in the top-right corner, next to the Share button), and then click Reviewing or Viewing to switch to a different way of working with your document. (NOTE: The button name will change based on the selected mode.)

Check out the rest of the story on this awesome feature, right here.

Cheers,
Nathan

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[#2]

@Nathan_Pfeifer I work for a law firm that uses read-only documents as Precedents for staff to personalise for clients needs.  These open in view mode and are unable to be edited.  As we use a document management system rather than Save As, our only option is to copy and paste the entire document and hope that the formatting stays true.

This is a feature that should be able to be turned off as I can see that it would be a blessing for some people but it's an absolute curse for others.  This is seen in online forums such as this one https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/how-to-turn-off-the-reviewing-editing-and-vie...

[#3]

I also work at a law firm. I open a lot of files from emails, and apparently, you all think I need a pop-up notification EVERY TIME I open a file that I am in "viewing" mode, even though it says so right at the top anyway. You also need to alert me via ANOTHER popup notification when I change to reviewing mode.

I don't even know what to call this "feature /bug" in order to look up how to turn it off. I hate it so much.

[#4]

This is a very important and good function for me. But this button suddenly disappear today! Yesterday this function was working fine! I have not find some solutions about this issues.

[#5]

@StarStone It has also happened to me today, one day after you. Maybe some update issue? I also haven't find solutions till now.

[#6]

@R_Modesto I have solved this issue successfully! The Microsoft Community told me two solutions. You can try them. I used the first method to solve this issue.
1. use safe mode to run Word. Click "win"+"R", and the Run command box will appear, then type "winword /safe".

2. Reinstall the WordAPP.  But before reinstalling, try to clear the cache. Maybe the cache issue is a bit corrupted? Sometimes reinstalling does not clear the cache.

[https://learn.microsoft.com/office/dev/add-ins/testing/clear-cache]

I hope these methods can help you.

[#7]

@Nathan_Pfeifer 

Is it by design that when in "Viewing" mode, you are not able to open embedded documents? This isn't a problem if the document resides on your computer, as you can easily switch to "Editing" mode and can then open the embedded document. However, this is a problem when the document resides on a SharePoint site where you have read-only permissions - opening the document from this type of location with this type of access opens the file in "Viewing" mode and you cannot switch between the other modes. Before this feature rolled out, you were able to open embedded documents from a document residing on a SharePoint site with read-only permissions.

[#8]

Your terminology makes no sense, speaking as a copyeditor. I edit documents. I do it with track changes turned on, because the author gets to review my edits. Yet editing mode automatically turns track changes off, and reviewing mode has it on. It's confusing, bizarre, and annoying--and honestly, I kind of wish you'd give us all the option to just simply *turn off* all the collaboration stuff altogether. I don't use it, and I don't need it mucking things up. Our process is straightforward, and only one person works on any given document at any time. But unfortunately, there's no way to simply turn the collaboration features off. I really, really wish that there was such an option.

[#9]

@Nathan_Pfeifer 

This feature has turned up in my organization recently we are a worldwide business working in 157 countries to date. People are asking to turn off this feature. can you tell me how to do that?

[#10]

I agree with many of the comments here. This is the most maddening "feature" you've rolled out in years. I don't think you worked with *anyone* who regularly reviews and/or edits other people's writing, which has got to represent a significant percentage of Word users. AT LEAST make it possible to turn off everything related to "collaboration". This is not how my business works and this "feature" is causing significant headaches and wasting my time.