Forum

Friends,

I've never liked comments: I find they rapidly get very messy and confusing.
But, some of my colleagues insist on using them.

What I lack is means to export my document to pdf and/or print it clean of all comments -- I only wish to see the final version, not the deleted words.
This is such an obvious request. There surely must be a way to do this, but I can't find it.

Also, once the document is finished, I'd like to be able to save a clean version -- all comments erased -- again, I can't find out how.

Help!

Janet

OK, I found it: you turn off comments by deactivating Track Changes

Grrrrrrrrrr

Now I like comments even less.

Janet

File > Print > PDF > "Save as PDF" . This will give you comments in the margin of the PDF.

File > Export > PDF... (then uncheck "annotations") . This gives a clean document without comments shown.

Is this what you're after?

Thanks, Venesy, only this doesn't work.

Unchecking Annotations on Exporrt PDF removes the annotations plane but not the changes themselves.

If I changed the letter a to b I will get crossed out a followed by b. This is not a "clean" document.

Janet

OK, I found it: you turn off comments by deactivating Track Changes

Just to clarify and prevent misunderstanding: In Mellel lingo "Track Changes" are not the same as "Comments." Comments are the yellow annotations which reside in the Annotations Pane. You are talking about "Track Changes".

At least this is the English Mellel terminology.

Yes it's all very confusing since track changes and comments both appear in the annotation plane and both appear/disappear as the plane is tuned on and off.
And, if I'm not mistaken, both use in the same yellow.

What I would like to be able to do -- as far as I can tell this can't be done -- is to print out the final document (after all the changes are applied) without having to delete the change history.

If Mellel has a way to do this, I haven't found it.

Also, while I'm at it, I'd like to be able to see a working copy of the document (with all the changes in place) so I can check the formatting.

Janet

Hi Janet,
This is interesting and thanks for drawing my attention to this. I see now that you are right. Using Nisus as my daily word processor, I assumed Track Changes and Comments would be displayed in two different panes (or columns), but Mellel seems to follow Word here, which also has Track Changes and Comments in one annotation pane.

By me, the comments have a yellow background, which can't be changed, if I'm right. The Track Changes, on the other hand, have the user color Sky, so both are clearly distinguishable in the Annotation Pane.

I just tried now to change the user color in Mellel Preferences > Document Setup to Tangerine, but nothing happens. I tried the other colors too, but I'm still having the comments displayed in yellow and the Track Changes in Sky. I quit and restarted Mellel, but to no avail. I also changed the User Name, but that had no effect. Comments and Track Changes are still created under my old User Name. Is this only happening to me?

What I would like to be able to do -- as far as I can tell this can't be done -- is to print out the final document (after all the changes are applied) without having to delete the change history.

This sounds like a good idea. But how about making a copy of the final document before you accept all the Track Changes? That copy would contain the change history, isn't it?

This is helpful but ....

1. if several of us are working together on a document using Track Changes, each gets a different color and the Comments get lost in shuffle.

2. Yes, saving the change history separately is an option. Though this may also get messy if the document ends up going through several versions.

3. I still think there should be a way to produce a "clean" pdf while the work is in progress. Formatting can be an important issue in these documents, but there is no way to see how the final page will look with Track Changes in place.

Janet