How to redline a contract in Word, Google Docs or a PDF

A redline is a draft that shows proposed changes on top of the original text: deletions struck through, insertions underlined or in color, usually with comments in the margin. Today it means a Word file with Track Changes on, or a Google Doc in Suggesting mode.

A blackline is made after the fact: software compares two versions and marks every difference. Word calls this “Compare two versions of a document (legal blackline)”.³ You make a redline while you edit; you make a blackline to check what someone else changed.

• Get their editable file: the .docx, or edit access to the Google Doc.
• Save a copy with a version name. For example, “Client MSA v2, Provider comments 2026-10-13.docx”. Keep their original untouched in the same folder.
• Set your name. Word puts your user name on every change and comment. Check it under File › Options › General › “Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office”, so their lawyer sees “Jane Park, Acme Studio” and not “Owner” or “HP User”.⁴

Decide what you will ask for before you open the file. If you have not written your positions yet, the MSA review checklist gives a starting point for each clause.

The steps, as Microsoft’s help gives them:¹

1. 1

   Turn on tracking.

   Review tab › Tracking › Track Changes. Choose “For Everyone”, so every edit in the file is tracked, not only yours.

2. 2

   Show everything while you work.

   In the markup menu on the Review tab, choose “All Markup”. “Simple Markup” shows only a red line in the margin, and you will lose track of what you changed.

3. 3

   Edit in place.

   Select the words you want gone and type the new ones. Word shows the old text struck through and the new text in color. Change only the words that need to change: replacing a whole paragraph to alter three words hides your real point.

4. 4

   Add a comment on each change that matters.

   Select the changed text, then Review › New Comment, and write one line.² Comment on the change itself, not on a nearby heading, so the reason sits next to the words.

5. 5

   Leave their earlier changes alone.

   If the draft already has tracked changes from their side, do not accept or reject them silently. Reply in a comment: “Agreed”, or “See our change below”.

6. 6

   Lock tracking if the file goes back and forth.

   Review › Tracking › Track Changes › Lock Tracking sets a password so nobody turns tracking off by accident.¹

7. 7

   Read it once in “No Markup”,

   as the contract would read if they accepted everything.

When they send back a clean copy, do not trust the cover email’s summary. Run a comparison: Review › Compare › Compare, “Compare two versions of a document (legal blackline)”, with your last version as the original and theirs as the revised. Word builds a third document with every difference marked, and neither file changes.³

Before you send. Do not run Word’s Document Inspector on the redline: it can remove comments and revision marks.⁵ Delete notes meant for your own team by hand.

Google Docs calls tracked changes “suggestions”. Google’s steps:⁶

1. 1

   Switch to Suggesting.

   At the top right, click “Editing” and choose “Suggesting” from the menu. (When you select text, a “Suggest edits” button may also appear in the margin.)

2. 2

   Edit as usual.

   Your changes appear in a new color, and anything you delete is crossed out.

3. 3

   Explain each change.

   Click your suggestion, type the reason as a comment, and click “Reply”.

4. 4

   Let the owner decide.

   The document's owner gets an email about your suggestions and can accept or reject each one, or use Tools › “Review suggested edits” to accept or reject them all.

People with comment or edit access can suggest, so a client can give you commenter access and keep control of the text.⁶

When the contract came as Word. Upload the .docx and open it in Docs: tracked changes in the file are carried over as suggested edits.⁷ To send a Word file back, use File › Download › Microsoft Word (.docx), then open the download in Word and check that every suggestion shows as a tracked change and every comment is there before you attach it.

To see what changed between two Docs, open the newer one and use Tools › “Compare documents”. Docs builds a new document that shows the differences as suggested edits.⁸

A PDF is built for reading and signing. You have three options; only the first is good.

• Ask for the Word file. One line does it: “Could you send the editable version? We’ll track our changes in it.” The legal team almost always has one.
• Mark up the PDF with comments. In Adobe Acrobat, the comment tools include Strikethrough, Replace text and Insert text. Adobe is clear about the limit: text edit comments do not change the text of the PDF.⁹ Their lawyer must retype each change into their own draft, and every retyped word is a chance for an error.
• Convert the PDF to Word. Word can open a PDF and convert it, but the result may not look exactly like the original: lines and pages can break in different places, and a page that is mostly graphics may come in as an image you cannot edit.¹⁰ If you redline a converted file, say so in the email, because their lawyer will compare it to their own draft, not to your conversion.

Never edit the PDF’s text directly: it leaves no trace, and reads as an untracked change.

What a redline that gets ignored looks like:

• Forty changes, half of them style.
• Whole clauses deleted and rewritten in your own words, so their lawyer cannot see what you actually changed.
• Changes with no reason, so each one comes back as a question.
• Numbering, defined terms and formatting changed along the way.
• An internal note left in a comment: “Let’s see if they notice this.”

What a redline that gets accepted looks like:

• Change the words where you want different terms: a number, a period, a party, a word like “sole” or “any”.
• Comment, without changing, when you have a question, when you want to flag a point for a call, or when you accept a clause but want them to know you read it.
• Keep their structure. Their numbering, their defined terms, their headings. If you need a new defined term, add it where they define the others.
• Delete with care. Strike a whole clause only when the clause itself is the problem, such as a non-compete, and say so in the comment.
• Change as little as you can. “Within sixty (60) days” to “within thirty (30) days” is a two-word change. Keep it that way.

The first round goes out with a summary of your main points. The email below is for the round after: their lawyer answered your redline, and you reply.

The line “nothing else has changed” lets their lawyer run a compare and trust it.

Tommos (tommos.ai) is a CRM whose AI agents, the tommos, take a B2B inquiry to a signed contract. On the Sign plan, $899 a month for the firm, Tommo Legal does the redline in this guide.

When the client’s paper arrives on a deal, Tommo Closer passes it to Tommo Legal, which reads it clause by clause against the positions your firm wrote once. It writes a clause memo only where their text departs from your positions, with the counter-wording to paste, and marks the points worth a lawyer. When their paper is a Word file, it returns tracked changes in the client’s own document, under Tommo Legal’s name, saved beside their original in the client’s folder in your Google Drive. A change whose place it cannot find in their text stays in the memo and is reported, never placed by guess. A PDF gets the memo, and the tracked changes need the Word file. The memo is research, not legal advice.

You decide each point on a card. Tommo Legal never writes to the client: Tommo Closer sends their legal team the points you accepted with a link to the redline. Tommo Legal also drafts your SOW from your own template in your Drive, and when the paper is agreed, a person your firm allows to sign presses Sign on the card and signs electronically right there, with a certificate and a record of who signed and when, in the price of the plan. The copy signed by both sides is filed in the client’s folder. Tommo Closer then proposes the invoice schedule from the signed SOW’s milestones, and a person approves each invoice before it goes out through Mercury.

What Tommo Legal does · Every plan

A redline is only as good as what you change. The ten clauses to check, with a fair counter for each, are in how to review a client’s MSA before you sign, and on one page here:

• Redline in their own file: Track Changes in Word, Suggesting in Google Docs.
• Change the words that carry terms; put the reason in a one-line comment.
• Ask for the Word file instead of marking up a PDF; Acrobat’s comments do not change the text.
• Use Compare (a blackline) whenever the other side sends a clean copy.
• Each round’s email says what you accepted, what moved, what is open, and that nothing else changed.

This is not legal advice. It is how a services firm redlines a contract in practice; for a large deal or an unusual clause, ask a lawyer.

1. Microsoft Support, “Track changes in Word”, read Oct 13, 2026
2. Microsoft Support, “Insert, delete, or change a comment”, read Oct 13, 2026
3. Microsoft Support, “Compare document differences using the legal blackline option”, read Oct 13, 2026
4. Microsoft Support, “Change your user name and initials”, read Oct 13, 2026
5. Microsoft Support, “Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks”, read Oct 13, 2026
6. Google Docs Editors Help, “Suggest edits in Google Docs”, read Oct 13, 2026
7. Google Workspace Updates, “Using suggested edits between Microsoft Word and Google Docs”, July 25, 2014, read Oct 13, 2026
8. Google Workspace Updates, “Compare documents in Google Docs”, June 2019, read Oct 13, 2026
9. Adobe Acrobat Help, “Mark up text with edits”, read Oct 13, 2026
10. Microsoft Support, “Opening PDFs in Word”, read Oct 13, 2026