How to collate beta feedback using Microsoft Word

There are many different ways to collect and collate feedback from beta readers. I use Microsoft Word because it’s simple, flexible, and pretty much everyone knows how to use it. But how do you combine all your readers’ comments into the one document for review? In this blog post, I will show you how to do exactly that! →

Getting started and gathering feedback

There are many different ways to collect and collate feedback from beta readers. No method is right or wrong; it comes down to what’s easiest for you—and what’s easiest for your beta readers!

Personally, I use Microsoft Word. It’s simple, flexible, and is a program pretty much everyone is familiar with using. It’s also pretty straightforward to collate all the comments from your various readers into the one document. Here’s an example of what that looks like:

You can see how useful this is, right? Once your beta readers have finished commenting on your manuscript, you can merge all their comments into the one document so you can review them at the same time. Plus, you can readily make changes to the formatting of the document to make it cleaner to read (e.g. increasing line spacing if you want to write all over it).

Today, I’m going to step you through the mechanics of collating your betas’ feedback into the one MS Word document.

The obvious first step is that you need to ask your betas to comment on a MS Word version of your book. Provide clear directions about what sort of comments you want them to make, and all they need to do to comment is highlight the text, go to the Review tab on the Ribbon, and click on New Comment. It’s as easy as that!

You may also ask your betas to use Track Changes if they’re going to make an amendments or correct any mistakes in your manuscript, but that’s a lesson for another day. Once all your readers have returned their marked-up versions of your book, it’s time to move onto the collation stage.

Using the MS Word “Combine” function

Step 1 – Get all your files organised

Before we jump into the fun stuff, make sure all your marked-up manuscript documents are organised. I strongly recommend you have one document for each beta reader and label the document with the reader’s name (you’ll see why shortly). The marked-up documents should also be filed away in the one folder. You don’t HAVE to do all these things, but I promise, it will make your life much easier as we step through the rest of the process. 😀

Step 2 – Open up the Compare > Combine function

Open up one of your beta reader’s documents. Which one doesn’t really matter, but it will be easier to keep track of if you go in alphabetical order. Go to the Review tab in the Ribbon and select Compare > Combine.

Step 3 – Select the first two documents to combine

The Combine Documents window will now open up. Under Original document, select the document you currently have open. Under Revised document, select your second beta reader’s marked-up document.

Where it says Label unmarked changes with, you can just write your own name (or anything you want, really). What this means is that when MS Word compares the two versions of the document and notices changes that can’t be attributed readily to one of the commenters, it will label those changes with whatever you put in that box.

Step 4 – Choose your comparison and change settings

Click on More on the bottom left of the Combine Documents window, and it will expand to show further settings. In the Comparison settings section, when you tick a box, MS Word will pay attention to these elements when it compares the documents and highlight where there are differences between the two versions. It is ultimately up to you what settings you choose, but make sure Comments is checked. For our purposes, you’ll also want to select New document under the Show changes in heading.

Step 5 – Create and save your combined document

Click OK. A new document will now open up. Don’t panic if it takes a few seconds, especially if you have long documents or documents with lots of comments. This new document will have combined the comments from the two documents you selected in Step 3.

Now you need to Save this new document—preferably in the same folder as the other marked-up manuscripts. Give it a clear name so you know what the document contains. For example: “Combine 1 & 2” or “Combine Ben & Emily”.

Step 6 – Select your next document to combine

Repeat Step 3. This time, under Original document, select your newly combined version. Under Revised document, select your third beta reader’s marked-up document. We’ll be repeating this again depending on how many readers you had, so can you see now why it makes sense to label them appropriately and open them in alphabetical order?

Step 7 – Repeat until all documents have been combined into the one

Repeat Steps 4 and 5. You’ll now have a document that has collated comments from three different beta readers. If you have more than three readers, go back to Step 3 and keep repeating the process until all of the marked-up documents have been collated into the one.

Yes, it’s a bit annoying you can’t just merge them all at once, but this process is pretty quick and easy once you get the hang of it, and at the end, you get the product you wanted!

How do you collate feedback from beta readers? What tools or programs do you use? Have you ever used Microsoft Word to collect and combine the comments?