Track changes in Layout by Zaweba, from typing to accepting

Late text edits are where layout jobs go wrong. An editor changes a sentence, the designer retypes it, and nobody is quite sure afterwards what was changed or who asked for it. Track changes in Layout by Zaweba records edits to the text as they happen, so the corrections can be seen, checked and then accepted or rejected without anyone comparing two PDFs line by line.

You find it at Type > Track changes, with a panel of its own. It works per story, which means you choose which threaded runs of text are being tracked rather than putting the whole document under watch.

What gets recorded in a tracked story

Once tracking is on for a story, text you type or paste is marked as added. Text you delete is not thrown away; it stays in the story, marked as deleted, so the reviewer can see exactly what used to be there. Paragraph breaks and moves are recorded too, which matters in layout because a new paragraph break can push a heading onto the next page or change how a column balances.

Every change carries an author and a time. With more than one person working on the same file across a day, that is the difference between a list of edits and a record of who decided what.

How tracked edits look on the page

Changes are shown on the page in the author's colour, so two editors working on a feature can be told apart at a glance. They are never printed or exported. You can send a proof PDF to a client while changes are still pending, and the PDF shows the text as it currently stands, without coloured marks or struck through words. Equally, you don't have to remember to hide anything before a press export.

Because deleted text is kept in the story, a frame can look fuller on screen than it will be once the changes are accepted. Keep that in mind when judging overset text or column fit during review; the real fit is the one you see after accepting.

Stepping through, accepting and rejecting

The panel moves to the next or previous change, and each one can be accepted or rejected on its own. For a large edit you can accept or reject all of them at once, or just one author's. That last option is handy when the copy editor's corrections are all approved but a second person's suggestions still need discussing. Accept one author's set, then go through what remains change by change.

A good routine for a magazine feature runs like this. The writer's final text is placed and tracking is turned on for the story. Editors make their corrections in the layout itself, where they can see the effect on line breaks and page fit. The designer then steps through the changes, accepting the ones that fit and flagging the ones that cause problems, such as a correction that adds a line and leaves a widow. The finished story is clean, and nothing was retyped by hand.

Habits that keep tracking useful

Turn tracking on before the first correction, not halfway through. Changes made before it was on are simply part of the text and can't be listed later.

Agree who edits which stories, and let each person make their own corrections rather than passing them to one operator. The author on each change only means something if the person named really made it.

Don't leave changes hanging for weeks. A story with dozens of pending edits is hard to read on screen, and the final fit is guesswork until they are accepted. Clear them at each proof stage.

Track changes sits alongside Notes, which carry editorial comments without changing the text. Use notes for questions and instructions, and tracked changes for the actual edits. Between them, the conversation about a page can happen inside the document instead of in a long email thread.