Remove name of reviewer in word

My previous tutorial “How to Change Your User Name for Track Changes in Microsoft Word” shows how to change user names for comments and edits created with Track Changes. However, Word doesn’t have a straightforward way to change user names connected to existing comments and edits, so that tutorial only works for new comments and edits. As an alternative, today’s tutorial demonstrates how to remove user names connected to all Track Changes [existing and future] and replace them with the default label Author, as shown in figure 1.

Note that this process will also remove time stamps [time and date] from comments and edits.

Figure 1. User name changed to “Author”

This solution obviously isn’t ideal for those of us who would like to change our user name for existing comments and edits to something other than Author, but it is useful when anonymity is important.

This tutorial is also available as a YouTube video showing all the steps in real time.

Watch more than 100 other writing-related software tutorials on my YouTube channel.

The images below are from Word for Microsoft 365. The steps are the same for Word 2021, Word 2019, Word 2016, Word 2013, and Word 2010.

Caution: This process is not reversible and applies to all users associated with the document, even those who haven’t used Track Changes. It also permanently removes authorship and “Last Modified By” data. Therefore, you should complete this process on a secondary copy of your document rather than on the original.

1. Open a secondary copy of your original document saved under a different file name. [Please see the Caution statement above.]

2. Select the File tab.

Figure 2. File tab

3. Ensure that you are in the Info tab in the Backstage view.

Figure 3. Info tab in the Backstage view

4. Select the Check for Issues button.

Figure 4. Check for Issues button

5. Select Inspect Document in the drop-down menu.

Figure 5. Inspect Document option

6. Save your document by selecting Yes in the question dialog box. [This dialog box may not appear if you recently saved your changes.]

Figure 6. Question dialog box

7. Uncheck all the options in the Document Inspector dialog box except Document Properties and Personal Information.

Figure 7. Document Properties and Personal Information checkbox

8. Select the Inspect button.

Figure 8. Inspect button

9. Select the Remove All button next to Document Properties and Personal Information.

Figure 9. Remove All button

10. Review the inspection results.

Figure 10. Inspection results

11. Select the Close button to close the Document Inspector dialog box.

Figure 11. Close button

12. Save, close, and reopen your document.

13. Verify that all user names have been changed to Author in the Track Changes balloons, as shown in figure 1.

If you would like to resume using user names within the same document, visit “How to Stop Microsoft Word from Calling You “Author” in Track Changes.”

When using Word, editing and revisions are done by leaving comments in the documents and as this happens, the user names are left on display to indicate who the editor or user is. Sometimes, people would rather do away with this for particular reasons.

One may be using a computer that isn’t theirs and this could cause the display of the wrong user name. In rare cases, someone may need to change their user name and other people like privacy. They wouldn’t want their names to be made public even though they did make changes to the document.

All this and so much more. These situations happen and it can be frustrating if you can’t figure out how to change the author name in the comments while using Microsoft Word so here are a few solutions. Below, are ways on how to get that done;

Remove Personal Details

1. Open the Word document and select File. Thereafter, click Info.
2. Find the Check For Issues icon and click.
3. When the Dropdown list appears, select Inspect Document.

1. In the Inspect Document dialog box, make sure that the Document Properties and Personal Information option is checked.
2. Select Inspect

1. In a few minutes, there will be a message stating that particular document information has been located. Select the Remove All option found in Document Properties and Personal Information.
2. Select Close finally.

1. Save the document and it will be seen that the author names have been replaced by “A”

When you have followed all the steps above, the action will be complete and all comments made in the future using Microsoft Word will immediately take the username “A”. This solution is automatic until you choose to change it.

If you wish to change all this, you can take the following steps;

1. Open the Document and select the File tab. Thereafter, click Options to open Word Options in the dialog box.
2. Select Trust Center Settings on the right to open the Trust Center dialog box.
3. Clear the Remove Personal Information from the File Properties.
4. Click OK in all dialog boxes.

Edit the User Name

1. Select the Review tab.
2. Tap Tracking Changes.
3. Select Change User Name.

1. When the Word Options dialog comes onto the screen, ensure the General tab is shown then change the user name or initials to your preference.
2. Select OK

It is important to note that all documents made thereafter will change to display the edited username while the comments made before staying the same.

Using codes to change the username

1. Click ‘Alt+ F11‘ to open the VBA editor.
2. Paste these codes and then click Run.

Sub ChangeAllAuthorNamesInComments[]

Dim job comment As Comment

‘ ChangeAllAuthorNamesInComments

For Each job comment In ActiveDocument.Comments

objComment.Author = “Test Name”

objComment.Initial = “TN”

Next job comment

End Sub

1. Where there is LBJ comment. Author = “Test Name” the “Test Name” means the name that will be displayed when the cursor lingers over the comment. You can change and edit to your preference.
2. Where there is LBJ comment.Initial = “TN” the “TN” means the initials of “Test Name” which should be set considering the name chosen on the last code line.

Do you know that there is an easier way to keep track of your Microsoft Word Documents?

If you do not, here is how. Simul Docsis a great tool for collaboration and automatically tracking changes made to Microsoft Word documents. It facilitates sharing of editing commentary notes too. Keeping track of changes made to Microsoft Word documents can be challenging because there is minimal version control so what Simulseeks to do is bridge that gap.

Users or editors have the chance to leave comments in the document to provide the additional and necessary information. They can also start a conversation thread with Simul facilitating short messages between them about the changes to be made in the document.

After the necessary exchange of notes in the comment section, once the team collaborating has agreed on what changes have been made, the document can then be saved and shared in any preferred format. It can be shared via a direct link, email or a cloud system such as Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox and more.

How do I anonymize a reviewer in Word?

Right-click [Windows] or control-click [Mac OS] the comment or edit and select Properties. c. Under General delete the author name. Type in “Reviewer” or “Anonymous” or leave the author field blank.

How do I hide the author name in Word?

If you share a document with other people, you can remove personal information, such as author name and company, that Office automatically adds to a document. On the Word menu, click Preferences. Under Privacy options, select the Remove personal information from this file on save check box. Save the document.

How do I get rid of reviewer comments in Word?

There are two ways you can delete or remove comments from a Word document:.

To delete a single comment in the document, right-click the comment, and choose Delete Comment..

To delete all the comments in the document, go to the Review tab, click the down-arrow on Delete, and choose Delete All Comments in Document..