Google Docs, Sheets, Drawings, and Slides documents record every change and/or edit that's ever made. This catalog of document changes is called the Version History. While Microsoft Word has the ability to turn 'rail changes' on and off for a certificate, Google takes this to the next level by recording EVERY alter and continuously recording those changes ALL the fourth dimension.

The Version History is a powerful tool that yous tin can wield in all kinds of powerful ways. Be warned, though, ye wary Google Docs travelers: the Version History tin too be used against you, possibly revealing embarrassing information that you didn't want to become public. Thus, while you may not choose to master the Version History, you do need to know enough to protect yourself from accidentally revealing sensitive data.

How to View a Document's Version History

There are at least three ways to view a certificate's version history, which I'll show from quickest to slowest. While I'll employ Google Docs every bit my case here, the process is identical in Sheets and Slides.

1. Quickest Mode: Hit Ctl+Shift+Alt+ H on your keyboard (Windows only, the Mac shortcut is different), which is the keyboard shortcut to reveal the Version History.

2. Quick Fashion: Discover your certificate's title, then wait down and correct of the title for a statement about the document'due south edit history. Information technology will be something along the lines of, "Last edit was on December 23". Click on this link, which will reveal the Version History:

3. Not-So-Quick Way: Click on the File menu, coil down to 'Version History, and then 'Encounter version history', and click it:

How to Navigate a Document'due south Version History

One time you're inside a document's Version History, you'll run across a greyness bar across the top of the screen and a timeline of all the document edits down the right-hand side of the screen. If yous want to see more granular edits, click the 'Show more than detailed revisions' push button in the bottom correct-manus corner.

If you select an edit date from the right-mitt timeline, all of the edits from that date will be visible and highlighted with different colors to denote each user's contributions and changes. You tin quickly skip betwixt edits by using the arrows at the top of the display, which is a lifesaver in long documents:

Nether each entry in the timeline, you'll also see an option to 'Restore this revision'. If you click this, the document will exist revised to just reflect the changes made upward until that signal in time. You lot still accept the selection to undo this, since you can restore your second-to-last revision to disengage the restoration of an former version.

Who can meet a Document'south Version History?

Simply a document's owner and editors can access a certificate's version history. If yous want to check who has admission to the version history, open up your certificate's sharing settings. The version history is hidden from anyone who has View or Comment access:

Using Version History for Good

The obvious use case for Version History is to look dorsum at changes to a document. If there are unexpected changes, or you only want to ensure that no unexpected changes have been made, yous can review the Version History for edits. Hither are a few boosted ways that yous tin become more out of Version History.

Get Insight into Student Piece of work

You have a student who is ofttimes submitting low-quality writing compositions and you lot're curious what'southward going on. You tin use Version History to run across exactly how often the educatee edited their essay, when they started, and how much fourth dimension they spent on it. Did they submit a last-minute first draft, or did the student start early and complete multiple revisions? How did they actually use their in-class time to work on the assignment? Did they spend the whole grade typing "All work and no play makes Jack a tedious boy"?

For group projects, Version History besides gives you lot an thought of how much each student contributed. Did ane educatee do all of the typing, or practise yous see a residue betwixt the group members?

One Version to Dominion them All

Information technology's mutual, especially during budget flavor, for multiple versions of the same certificate to be sent dorsum and along between the Finance section and other folks in the system. For case, Finance might create a upkeep template for my department, and transport me a copy of the document (copy #one). I then add together my projections and send a new copy (copy #2) back to Finance, who then makes comments and revisions, then sends it back to me for approval (copy #3), so that I can review the revisions (copy #four), and so on, and then on, and so on. Inevitably, nosotros end up with conflicting versions ("I didn't see the changes I made in Copy #6 reflected in the latest version, Copy #nine, that I received from...") that accept time to sort out.

If yous're using Google Docs, all of these copies are redundant. You lot only need one certificateand all the different versions are there, saved forever in the version history, with the added bonus of having a proper noun attached to each change. It'south the All-Powerful Upgrade to Track Changes, and it can exist used for budgets, meeting notes, or almost any other document that suffers from versioning challenges.

Watch Your Own Writing Process with DraftBack

The Draftback Chrome extension is a peachy tool that will play back a certificate'southward unabridged history, as if y'all were watching a bioptic film about information technology. OK, maybe not the near exciting movie ever (peculiarly since it doesn't include any formatting changes), but information technology can exist useful to lookout the 'game film' of your writing process to give y'all an idea how often you self-edit when typing, how many typos you commit, etc. Hither's a short demonstration of what it looks similar.


Look for Evidence of Student Cheating

Version History volition show if your students are really writing their papers in Google Docs, or if they're copying and pasting their entire assignment all at once. Revision History, especially combined with DraftBack, will either show you the tiresome evolution of the student's paper over time, or it might bear witness the entire essay appearing all at once, having been copied from some other source. Of course, copying and pasting text doesn't necessarily mean plagiarism; the student might have done their writing in another application. It can, however, requite you some clues if y'all suspect a student isn't completing their own work.

This more in-depth video gives an example of how Version History caught a pupil's parent who was writing their papers for them. Revision History showed paragraphs had been added to a student'southward paper while that educatee was in gym class!

Show Before-and-Afterward Evidence of Piece of work You've Done

Let's say you're sitting downwards with your supervisor for your performance review. You've put a lot of work into re-designing some of your department'due south documents. You lot can apply Version History to testify off the work you've done: "This is what the Policy Doc looked like when I inherited it, and look at how I was able to improve it." Boom, you get a raise instantly. (Disclaimer: IT does not guarantee that y'all will get a raise)

The Dark Side of Version History

Like The Forcefulness, there's a lite side and a dark side to Version History. The potential dark side is the unintentional leaking of information to individuals you didn't intend. Call back that when you lot add a new editor to a certificate, they'll be able to see every comment and modify that your document has been through. Hither's are only a few examples where this might reveal consequential data to recipients:

  • You're submitting a writing sample equally a office of your application to Graduate Schoolhouse; the reviewer can see how much time y'all spent on it, how many editors helped you, and how many revisions it went through.
  • You're sending a draft contract to a school group; the receiving principal can see how the price was revised upwards several times, besides equally the comments where yous discussed these price hikes with colleagues.
  • You take notes during a staff hiring meeting most how you arrive at your height choice for the position; after your new hire starts working, they can utilize Version History to meet which of their new co-workers preferred the other candidate.
  • You make an unpopular change to the Employee Policies and Procedures; though you aren't identified as the author of the policy change, employees with editing access can still track you down every bit the person responsible for changes.

So, as useful as Version History can be, there are occasions when you might desire to purge the timeline of revisions to a certificate. Fortunately, there are 2 like shooting fish in a barrel ways to practice this:

  1. Export your document as a PDF. Changing a document to a PDF (or, actually, any other format) volition remove the revision history from the exported file. The original document will nevertheless have its version history, just the PDF will be history-gratuitous.
  2. Brand a copy of your document. If you lot make a copy of your original document (File -> Make a Copy), the new re-create won't bring any comments or revisions over with it. To any reviewer, this new document had no history before it was copied.

-RBB