Designed Reporting features are a part of an extension that's available to all solutions. Reach out to your Customer Success Manager to get access. Learn more about Designed Reporting here.
In designed reports, you can use track changes and blacklines to keep track of changes in files. Using the both of them can also help you and other collaborators improve floating object contents in your document.
- Use tracked changes to view changes to text within your floating objects. To learn more about floating objects, view Use floating objects.
- View the Blackline Changes panel to see deleted and added content within a section.
- Send blacklines for review with a specific view mode.
Use track changes
Track changes allow you to see a list of individual changes made to a document which you can approve or reject. You can enable track changes to your entire document or specific sections.
Changes are tracked for the text within floating objects, including the addition and deletion of floating objects will be tracked. However, moving floating objects around in the file will not be tracked.
Note: Approving track-deleted paragraphs will associate the floating object anchors to the nearest non-track-deleted paragraph
Track changes view modes
In the Review tab, there are three different view modes you can toggle to view changes.
-
Hide changes: Hides all changes markup. This lets you see the file as the latest revision in a clean view.
-
Simplified changes: Hides deleted content but shows a pin in the general location. This lets you see the final view of the document while also indicating areas of changes. You can click on the pins to see the detailed change cards in the Track Changes panel.
-
All changes: This is the default view for track changes. You'll see deleted and added content.
Note: The All changes view can affect the final layout of content since it makes room for deleted content which isn't present in the final revision.
For highly designed documents, we recommend the Simplified changes view. This way reviewers can see what the final file will look like with the changes made. For more information on track changes in documents, see Track changes in Documents.
Use blacklines
Blacklines are historical changes of two versions of a file. Each time you or a collaborator edits a document, a revision appears in the History panel that you can blackline. Revisions are shown when a change of content is made in the document that would affect the reader's ability to understand. By creating a blackline with two revisions, you can view and compare two different versions of your document.
Blacklines view modes
In the Review tab, there are three different view modes you can toggle to view changes.
-
Hide changes: Hides all changes markup. This lets you see the file as the latest revision in a clean view.
-
Simplified changes: Hides deleted content but shows a pin in the general location. This lets you see the final view of the document while also indicating areas of changes. You can click on the pins to see the detailed change cards in the Blackline Changes panel.
-
All changes: This is the default view for blacklines. You'll see deleted and added content.
Note: The All changes view can affect the final layout of content since it makes room for deleted content which isn't present in the final revision.
For highly designed documents, we recommend the Simplified changes view. This way reviewers can see what the final file will look like with the changes made.
On the right, you can open the Blackline Changes panel or click on the pins within the file. The panel only shows changes for the current section that your cursor is in.
Blacklines track the addition and deletion of floating objects. It also tracks subtext within floating objects. For more information on blacklines in documents, see Create and view document blacklines.
Send blacklines for review
You can send a review to let users in your workspace view and comment on an existing blackline. When you request a review, your reviewer can open the blackline in Workiva and add comments that will appear on the source file. Currently, you can only send blacklines for review.
Note: You can only send content that you own for review or have the permissions to send the document for review.
You can also set a default view for the reviewer. When they receive the review, it'll come in one of the three view modes that you chose. The reviewer can still toggle between views unless you check the box to prevent the reviewer from changing the view.
Blackline reviews work just like normal document reviews. To learn more about sending and reviewing files, see Send for Review.
Export blackline and track changes to PDF
You can export your blackline or tracked changes to a PDF that you can easily share with others. There are two options when exporting to PDF:
Note: These options don't support visualizing changes to floating objects.
- All changes: Exports to a PDF showing all of the changes inline in the document.
- Simplified changes with changelog: Exports to a PDF that uses indicators directly on the document to show where changes were made. The detailed changes are displayed in a separate log for each page. We recommend using this option if you want to see what the final report will look like with all of the changes made.
To export a blackline as PDF:
- In your blackline, click Save PDF in the toolbar.
If you don't have the blackline open, you can also go to the Blacklines panel and select Export to PDF from the blackline's dropdown.
- Choose to show All changes or Simplified changes with changelog.
Note: Tagging for web accessibility can’t be enabled when exporting as simplified changes with changelog.
- Once you've selected all of the options you want to include, click Export.
To export your document with tracked changes as PDF:
- In your document, click File, then Save As. From the dropdown menu, select PDF.
- Under Advanced, select Include track changes.
- Choose to show All changes or Simplified changes with changelog.
Note: Tagging for web accessibility can’t be enabled when exporting as simplified changes with changelog.
- Once you've selected all of the options you want to include, click Export.