Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Resolving Revisions.

Resolving Revisions

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 29, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

Excel allows you to easily track revisions made to your workbooks. At some time you will want to resolve your changes to get rid of the revision marks. This is typically done as you are finalizing a workbook, after you are sure that the changes are something you really want to keep. Excel allows you to automate much of the resolution process.

  1. Choose Track Changes from the Tools menu. This displays a submenu.
  2. Choose Accept Or Reject Changes from the submenu. Excel displays the Select Changes to Accept or Reject dialog box.
  3. If desired, use the radio buttons to indicate the criteria by which you want to review changes: when changes were made, who made them, and where they were made in the workbook.
  4. Click on the OK button to begin the reviewing process. Excel highlights an edited cell with an animated cell border and information about the edit is displayed in the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box.
  5. Click your mouse on Accept or Reject, depending on whether you want Excel to accept or reject the proposed edit. Excel moves on to the next change in the workbook.
  6. Repeat step 5 for each remaining edited cell.

You will notice that when you are done reviewing changes, Excel still shows edited cells with the blue border and tracking changes indicator. The only way to get rid of these (after you have reviewed all the changes) is to turn off the revision marking.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2869) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Resolving Revisions.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Displaying Letter Grades

Grading in schools is often done using numeric values. However, you may want to change those numeric values into letter ...

Discover More

Understanding Page Sizes

When you create a document, you need to be concerned about the final size of the page you will be creating. Word supports ...

Discover More

Creating a Custom Power Management Plan

Don't like the built-in power management plans that Windows provides? You can create your own to better fit your power needs.

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Understanding Outlining

Outlining, a feature built into Excel, can be a great way to help organize large amounts of data. This tip provides an ...

Discover More

Inserting a Voice Annotation in Your Worksheet

Excel can, once in a while, try to be a "multimedia program." Here's how you can add short sound files to your worksheet ...

Discover More

Adding Buttons to Your Worksheet

You can easily add a button to your worksheet that will allow you to run various macros. This tip shows how easy it is.

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is nine minus 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.