Easy explanation: the people you sent this to don't know how to use Track
Changes and have applied the formatting as direct font formatting. If you
use Reveal Formatting, you'll doubtless see the evidence of this. (I would
think the document might have been protected for tracked changes, but I
would not expect Word to fail to "see" these changes even if you couldn't
accept or reject them.)

Before you tear out your last hair, see if you can figure out any formatting
that has been consistently used for deletions; search for text formatted
with that formatting and replace it with nothing. Then search for text
formatted as additions and remove the font formatting. sigh

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Becky Carter Hickman-Jones" wrote in message
...
I have a lengthy document that has been passed around to a couple of
different people. The document was written by one person using Word XP; he
sent it to me for editing and formatting in Word XP; I sent it off to
another person (Word XP) who enabled Track Changes/Reviewing (whatever you
want to call it these days) and then made changes; she then passed it off
to
two other people (unknown versions) who added their comments and
recommendations.

Now the document has returned to me for editing, and while I can turn off
track changes, because I hate it, I cannot accept or reject any of the
changes. All of the suggestions remain colored and either underlined or
struck through. On the Reviewing toolbar, I have changed the view from
Original to Final, and nothing changes in the text display. When I show
Final, all of the red and blue text is still there. When I click the
forward
and backward arrows in the Reviewing toolbar, Word tells me that there are
no other changes to be reviewed when clearly they are everywhere!

I have tried saving the document in a different format and then back to
Word
XP. I have tried changing the compatibility of the document (Tools
Options). Nothing works. It's like the changes have been locked, like one
can lock a field to prevent it from being updated. I'll have to manually
edit each instance and reformat the whole document because of this.

Can anyone explain this behavior or provide a workaround? I have never
seen
this happen before, but I wouldn't put it past Word to make a mess of
things!! Another reason not to use track changes!!

Thanks,
Beck