Word with tracked changes: which version do you get?

When tracking is on, Word keeps both versions of every edit. The deleted words are still in the file, marked as deleted, and the new ones are marked as inserted. A paragraph cut from one place and pasted in another is stored twice, once as "moved from" and once as "moved to". Comments live in a separate part of the file, linked to the text they point at. Markdown has no way to show any of this, so a converter has to pick one version.

CleanMD gives you the document as it would look if every change were accepted. Inserted text is kept, deleted text is left out, and moved text appears once, in its new position. We tested this on a file built for the purpose: a fee changed from 500 to 650 comes out as 650, a deleted paragraph is gone, and a moved clause shows up where it was pasted.

That last part wasn't true until October 2026. While checking the facts for this guide we found that moved text disappeared from both places, the old one and the new one, and all you got was a warning about an unrecognised element. Word records a move whenever you cut and paste a paragraph with tracking on, so this was not a rare case. It's fixed now, and a test makes sure it stays fixed.

Comments are not included. Markdown has no comment syntax that every editor understands, and putting them inline would mix the reviewers' notes into the text. You're told instead. When a document has tracked changes the result says "Tracked changes were applied as if accepted", and when it has comments it says how many were not included. Before this was fixed they disappeared without a word.

Headers and footers of the Word document aren't converted either, which is usually what you want for page furniture but worth knowing if a footer carries something like a version number.

If you want the original text, before anyone's edits, open a copy of the file in Word, choose Reject All Changes on the Review tab, save it and convert that copy. If you want only some of the edits, accept and reject them in Word first, because the converter doesn't choose between changes. And if the comments are the point, for example a review you need to answer, export them from Word before you convert, since none of them will be in the Markdown.

Everything else works as with any Word file. Heading styles become Markdown headings, with the levels closed up so none is skipped, lists keep their nesting, and tables become Markdown tables. The conversion runs in your browser, so a draft contract under review never leaves your machine.