An illustration of a typical result. No real file, name or location is used.
Before — what you would be sending
terms-redline.docxDOCX
Tracked changes22 insertions and 17 deletions — deleted text is readable
Named editorsr.mehta, j.okafor
CommentsReviewer comments are still in this document
After cleaning
terms-redline-clean.docxDOCX
Tracked changesremoved
Named editorsremoved
Commentsremoved
Same result as accepting all changes in Word, without needing Word.
Hidden from view is not removed
Word's markup display is a viewing preference. Setting it to show the final version hides the revisions from you and from nobody else. The insertions, the deletions, the names and the timestamps all remain in the document body and are visible the moment anyone changes their own view setting.
What this reports
How many insertions and how many deletions are recorded, and the names of everyone credited with making them. That last part matters: a document can carry the names of people at your organisation who the recipient was never meant to know about.
Accepting is the fix
Accepting all changes resolves the revisions into ordinary text and removes the record. Cleaning here does the same thing directly on the file, which is useful when you do not have Word to hand.
In practice
Seeing them in the received document
If you have been sent a document and want to know what it contains, open the Review tab and set the markup display to All Markup. Everything recorded appears with names and timestamps. Whether you should look is a separate question, and in some jurisdictions and professions the answer is no — but the existence of the record is worth knowing about regardless, because it tells you whether the document is safe to forward.
The setting that causes most incidents
Track Changes can be switched on for a document and stay on through every subsequent edit by everyone who touches it. Combined with a display setting that hides the markup, a document can accumulate months of revisions that nobody involved has seen since the first week. Checking the Review tab before sending anything externally takes two seconds and catches the entire class of problem.
Comments are stored separately
Tracked changes live inside the document body; comments live in their own part of the archive with their own author names. A document can therefore have no tracked changes and still carry a dozen comments, or the reverse. They need removing separately, which is why a tool that reports one and not the other gives false reassurance.
Common questions
Can the recipient see my tracked changes if I hide them?
Yes. Display settings are local to each reader. The revisions are still in the file.
Does accepting all changes remove the history?
Yes. Once accepted, the revision records are gone from the document.
Does converting to PDF remove tracked changes?
It removes the revision records, but check the PDF's own metadata afterwards, since the author name usually carries across.