Editing A Word Document, Received In An Email .....

[Gizmonster]

Long story cut short:
My dad has written a book and sent a draft copy to the publishers.
Publisher has sent a copy back and my dad wants to edit this version that he has received from the publisher.

I've downloaded the document to my dad's desktop and tried editing it using Microsoft Office, Word 2003 (yea ........ I know it's ancient ...... but it works).
When I try and edit it, for example if I try and delete some of the text, a line appears through the wording and it changes colour. I thought it might have some kind of protection on the file, so asked them to send it again with no security, etc .... but it still does the same :(

Any advice please ????

[Barmaid]

Check your settings and see if you have "Track changes" switched on. Turn it off.

[Tuvok]

Sounds like track changes is on.

Will find a link and post it.

[Tuvok]

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Track-changes-in-Word-197ba630-0f5f-4a8e-9a77-3712475e806a

[Tuvok]

They've probably enabed it so they can see whats changed.

[Tilly2]

The publishers will want to see the edits. Just leave it, make the changes and send it back.

[Buenchico]

Firstly, if you're opening the document directly from your email, don't!

Save it to your hard drive first and then open it from there. That might be all that's needed. If not, go to where the file is stored on your hard drive and right-click on it. Select 'Properties' and look to see if 'Read only' is checked. If it is, remove the tick, click Apply and then OK.

If that doesn't help, go back to 'Properties' and look at the file type. You're hoping to see something like 'Microsoft Word 97-2003 Document (.doc)' but I suspect that the publisher has opened your father's manuscript in a more recent version of Word, then saved it using the default file format offered by that version (resulting in Word 2003 being unable to handle it properly).

If so, you can ask the publisher to re-open the file, select 'Save As' (NOT 'Save') and choose the 'Microsoft Word 97-2003' format.

Alternatively you can install an alternative Word processor, such as OpenOffice, which will be able to handle the newer file format:
https://www.openoffice.org/
(NB: If you install OpenOffice, I strongly recommend changing the default file format so that you don't end up with the publisher unable to read your father's manuscript! Easy instructions here: http://helpdeskgeek.com/office-tips/set-openof%EF%AC%81ce-org-to-save-in-microsoft-of%EF%AC%81ce-format-by-default/ )

[Gizmonster]

Cheers for all the speedy replies.
I'll check everything when I'm up at my dad's later in the week ;)

[Gizmonster]

Sorted today :)
It turns out track changes was switched on. I'd never heard of it ..... until now.
Just as well we have knowledgeable people on here whom we can rely on .... thanks to everyone .... but unfortunately, I can only award BA to one of ya :(