How to Cycle Word Reviewer Colors When You Have More Than Eight Authors

When you collaborate on a Word document with more than eight authors, Word stops assigning distinct colors to new reviewers. The ninth and subsequent authors all share the same color, making it impossible to tell who made which change at a glance. This happens because Word stores only eight unique markup colors in its internal palette. This article explains how to manually reassign or cycle reviewer colors using Word’s advanced settings so each author retains a visible identity.

Why Word Stops Assigning Distinct Colors After Eight Authors

Word’s Track Changes feature uses a fixed internal list of eight colors. These colors are stored in a palette that Word cycles through as new reviewers add changes. The first reviewer gets color 1, the second gets color 2, and so on. When a ninth reviewer makes a change, Word has no ninth color in its palette. Instead, it wraps back to the beginning and assigns color 1 again. From that point forward, any reviewer beyond the eighth shares a color with an earlier reviewer.

This limitation exists because the color palette is hard-coded into Word’s rendering engine and is not configurable through the user interface. The palette colors are:

1. Dark Red
2. Dark Blue
3. Dark Green
4. Dark Purple
5. Dark Orange
6. Dark Teal
7. Dark Pink
8. Dark Yellow

Word does not allow you to add custom colors to this palette. The workaround is to trick Word into assigning a new color to a reviewer by changing the reviewer’s identity or by modifying the document’s internal data.

Method 1: Change the User Name and Initials for Each New Reviewer

Word assigns a color based on the combination of the user name and initials stored in the document properties. If you change the user name or initials for a reviewer who already has a color, Word treats them as a new author and assigns the next available color in the palette.

1. Open Word and go to File > Options
   In the Word Options dialog, click the General tab.
2. Locate the Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office section
   Change the User name and Initials fields. For example, if the reviewer is named Jane Doe, change the name to Jane Doe (2) and the initials to JD2.
3. Click OK to save the changes
   Restart Word to ensure the new identity is loaded.
4. Open the document and make a new tracked change
   Word assigns a new color to the changed identity. If the ninth author now appears with a unique color, the method worked.

This method is not permanent. Each time you open the document with a different identity, the color may shift. It works best when you control the reviewer accounts and can assign unique names before starting the review cycle.

Method 2: Save the Document as a New File to Reset the Color Queue

When you save a document as a new file, Word sometimes resets the internal color assignment queue. This can free up a color slot for a reviewer who previously shared a color.

1. Open the document that has more than eight reviewers
   Ensure all tracked changes are visible so you can see the color assignments.
2. Click File > Save As
   Choose a new file name and location. Use the same file format, such as .docx.
3. Close the original document and open the new copy
   Word rebuilds the color assignment list for the new file. Reviewers who previously shared a color may now receive a unique color.

This method does not always work. Word’s color assignment depends on the order in which changes were added, not on the file save operation. It is a quick test but not a reliable fix.

Method 3: Edit the Document XML to Manually Assign a Color Index

For advanced users, the most reliable method is to edit the document’s XML directly. Each tracked change stores a w:color attribute that references the palette index. By changing this index, you can assign any of the eight palette colors to any reviewer.

1. Make a backup copy of the document
   XML editing can corrupt the file if done incorrectly. Save a separate copy before proceeding.
2. Change the file extension from .docx to .zip
   Right-click the file, select Rename, and replace .docx with .zip. Confirm the change when prompted.
3. Extract the ZIP archive
   Open the ZIP file and extract all contents to a folder.
4. Open the document.xml file
   Navigate to the word folder inside the extracted files. Open document.xml in a text editor such as Notepad or Visual Studio Code.
5. Search for the reviewer’s tracked changes
   Look for w:author attributes that contain the reviewer’s name. Each w:rPr element inside a tracked change contains a w:color w:val="colorIndex" attribute where colorIndex is a number from 0 to 7.
6. Change the color index value
   Replace the existing number with a different number from 0 to 7. For example, change w:val="0" to w:val="4" to assign dark orange. Save the file.
7. Repack the ZIP archive
   Select all extracted files and folders, right-click, and choose Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder. Replace the original ZIP file.
8. Rename the ZIP back to .docx
   Change the extension from .zip to .docx. Open the document in Word to see the new colors.

This method gives you full control over the color of each reviewer. However, it requires careful editing. If you change the wrong attribute, the document may fail to open or display errors.

Common Issues When Trying to Cycle Reviewer Colors

Word does not show a new color after changing the user name

Word caches the reviewer identity for the current session. Close and reopen Word after changing the user name. If the color still does not change, the reviewer may have existing changes that already have a color assigned. New changes will use the new color, but existing changes remain unchanged.

The XML edit causes the document to open as blank or with errors

An incorrect XML edit can break the document structure. Always use a backup and validate the XML before repacking. If the document opens with errors, Word may offer to repair it. The repair often removes the corrupted tracked changes, which deletes the color assignments entirely.

All reviewers show the same color after saving as a new file

This happens when the document contains more than eight reviewers and all have changes in the same paragraph. Word assigns a single color to all changes in a paragraph when the color queue resets. Use the XML editing method to assign individual colors instead.

Word Reviewer Color Limits: Built-In Palette vs XML Editing

Item	Built-In Palette (Default)	XML Editing (Manual)
Number of colors available	8	8 (same palette, but assignable per change)
Ease of use	Automatic, no setup needed	Requires file extraction and text editing
Supports more than 8 authors	No, colors repeat	Yes, each change can be assigned any of the 8 colors regardless of author
Risk of document corruption	None	High if XML is edited incorrectly
Permanent assignment	No, color changes when document is reopened with different user identity	Yes, colors are stored in the XML and persist

After using one of these methods, you can now distinguish each reviewer’s changes even when your document has more than eight authors. The most reliable approach for a one-time fix is the XML editing method, but for ongoing collaboration, consider limiting the review to eight people per round. If you frequently work with large review teams, explore Word’s Compare Documents feature as an alternative way to merge changes from multiple authors while keeping each version separate.