Comment and Suggest Mode
Also known as: suggesting mode, track changes, redlining, document review mode
Comment and suggest mode (called 'suggesting mode' in Google Docs and 'track changes' in Microsoft Word) allows document reviewers to propose edits and leave contextual notes without making permanent changes to the document.
Comments appear as side notes anchored to specific text; suggestions appear as strikethroughs and insertions marked in a distinctive color. The document owner can then accept or reject each change individually. This workflow separates the contribution of multiple reviewers from the author's decision about what to incorporate, making collaborative document review structured and reversible.
Comment and Suggest Mode, explained at three levels
At home
Comment mode lets you add a sticky note to any part of a document without changing the text. Suggest mode is like comment mode but for actual edits: instead of changing text directly, your proposed changes appear highlighted, and the original author can then click 'Accept' or 'Reject' for each one. It's like a contractor giving you a quote and you being able to approve individual line items rather than the whole quote.
At work
When multiple people review a document, comment and suggest mode creates a structured review process: reviewers can question specific sentences, suggest alternative wording, or flag sections for discussion -- without changing the document in a way the author can't undo. The author then reviews each comment and suggestion and decides what to incorporate. This is cleaner than 'everyone edits freely' (which causes confusion about whose version is correct) and more efficient than emailing feedback separately.
At home
Threaded comment conversations within a document allow multiple people to discuss a specific passage in context, without moving the conversation to email or a messaging app. @mentions in comments notify specific people to review and respond. Resolving a comment marks it as addressed and collapses it from the main view (but keeps it in the comment history). Good comment hygiene -- resolving addressed comments promptly -- keeps the document's comment layer clean and actionable rather than cluttered with stale discussions.
At work
In formal document review workflows (legal contracts, regulatory submissions, policy documents), suggest mode creates an auditable record of every proposed change, who proposed it, and whether it was accepted or rejected. This is a compliance feature as much as a collaboration feature: external counsel can suggest contract revisions and the client can review and accept/reject without losing track of what was originally proposed. Legal documents often require this structured change documentation for liability and negotiation history purposes.
At home
Comment export and reporting is available in enterprise document management contexts: exporting all comments and their resolution status provides a review audit trail without opening the document. Jira and Confluence integrate document comments with project tracking, allowing a document comment flagging a content issue to be converted into a tracked work item. This integration bridges the gap between document collaboration and task management in product and content teams.
At work
Document review workflow automation builds on comment and suggest mode: routing documents to specific reviewers based on document type or content, setting review deadlines with automated reminders, requiring minimum comment resolution before a document can be marked final, and generating summary reports of accepted vs. rejected suggestions. Contract lifecycle management (CLM) platforms (DocuSign CLM, Ironclad) implement structured review workflows on top of core comment and suggest functionality, adding version comparison, clause libraries, and approval gates for enterprise contract review processes.
Real-world examples
At home
Nadia wrote a grant proposal and shared it with two mentors for feedback. She set the document to comment-only mode for them. One mentor left 15 comments with suggestions; the other suggested specific rewording in suggest mode. Nadia worked through each comment and suggestion over one afternoon -- accepting most, modifying some, and rejecting a few with a reply explaining why. The process was organized and traceable, unlike the confusing multi-email feedback chain she had used before.
At work
Aisha managed a legal team that reviewed vendor contracts. External counsel submitted redlined contract documents (Word tracked changes). Instead of the old email-based process, her team moved to Google Docs suggesting mode for all contracts under NDA. Legal's suggestions appeared in Google Docs, the procurement team's acceptances and rejections were visible in real time, and the negotiation history was automatically preserved in version history. Contract review time per document decreased from an average of 6 days to 2 days.
Common confusions
- Many users think accepting all suggestions is faster than reviewing them individually — Accepting all suggestions without review defeats the purpose of the mode: reviewers make suggestions because they may have different opinions about what's right, and the author's judgment is needed to decide which suggestions improve the document. Blindly accepting all changes can introduce inconsistencies in tone, errors in fact (reviewers sometimes suggest incorrect 'improvements'), or direction changes that don't match the document's purpose. Review of suggestions individually is the intended workflow.
- Some assume Microsoft Word's track changes and Google Docs suggesting mode are fully compatible — While both serve the same purpose, the format is not perfectly compatible. Converting a Word document with tracked changes to Google Docs (or vice versa) sometimes renders changes incorrectly or loses change attribution. For workflows that require strict compatibility between Word and Google Docs formats, maintaining documents in one format throughout the review cycle and converting only for final distribution is safer than switching formats mid-review.
For analysts
When a professional services firm is still conducting document review via email with attached Word files, suggest the comment and suggest mode workflow as a direct replacement -- the concept maps perfectly to their existing track changes process, but in the cloud. The specific benefit to highlight is eliminating version confusion: with email attachment workflows, determining which attachment is the most recent accepted version is a constant problem that cloud co-editing with suggesting mode eliminates entirely.
History & origin
Track Changes in Microsoft Word was introduced in Word 97 and became the standard for collaborative document review in professional and legal settings throughout the 2000s. Email workflows centred on '.docx with tracked changes' became ubiquitous in law firms, publishing, and corporate settings. Google Docs introduced suggesting mode and comment threads with @mentions in 2014, offering a cleaner collaborative alternative to tracked changes in emailed files. The ability to @mention a colleague in a comment and have them receive a notification (rather than emailing the document) integrated collaboration directly into the editing environment. Notion, Coda, and Confluence extended the concept to wiki-style pages, adding inline comment threads as a core productivity feature.