Redlining is the beating heart of contract negotiation. It’s all about making line edits or substantive changes to a contract’s content to reflect terms both parties can happily shake hands on. It's a must-have skill for legal teams to ensure clarity and mutual satisfaction.
Microsoft Word holds the crown for redlining among legal teams. Its user-friendly features make it a breeze for even the least tech-savvy team members to make and share edits. Word's capabilities for tracking changes, suggesting edits, and maintaining version control make it an invaluable tool in your legal arsenal.
Microsoft Word shines when it comes to drafting, editing, and reviewing contracts.
How to Redline in Microsoft Word Using Track Changes
Manually editing text makes version control a challenge. Instead, enable Track Changes by navigating to “Review” in the top menu of Microsoft Word. Track Changes lets you keep tabs on who made which changes and compare suggested edits against the original text. Inline edits are color-coded, clearly signaling modifications. Best of all, changes appear as suggestions, giving your team the power to accept or reject them at will.
If you’re looking to add more high-level feedback or share context, you can drop comments directly into Word. Or if you’re using the LinkSquares CLM, you can access the in-app chat without leaving Word — just highlight the text you want to flag and tag any members of your team you want to keep updated. Those comments can be seen in LinkSquares and from the LinkSquares Microsoft Word Add-In.
Redline more efficiently with the right CLM
While Microsoft Word is a great tool for redlining, managing multiple versions of an agreement while you switch back and forth between Word and your CLM to manage reviews and approvals can slow the process down.
The right contract lifecycle management tool can complement your redlining in Microsoft Word. In the LinkSquares Microsoft Word Add-In, legal teams can view all in-flight agreements housed in their CLM, make redlines, and upload new versions without leaving Word. You can even access your preferred language from your Clause Library for faster, more consistent redlining. Want to speed up redlining even more? Let AI take the first pass.
Speeding up redlining with Generative AI
There’s no need to start from scratch every time you begin the redlining process. With generative AI baked into the LinkSquares Microsoft Word Add-In, the manual, repetitive nature of redlining is a thing of the past.
First time reviewing an agreement or working with 3rd party paper? Get insight into an agreement in seconds and let the AI read the agreement for you, summarize its content, and surface key points. Or ask the AI a specific question about the agreement like “What’s the expiration date?” and get instant answers.
Once you’re ready to begin redlining, just have the AI review your agreement, comparing it to your preferred positions to flag deviations and surface proposed redlines. From there, you can resolve warnings or insert the proposed language into the agreement. While it’s no substitute for the human eye, generative AI can be a powerful tool to reduce the load of contract review and negotiation.
“We worked on an SOW that went through 80 iterations and lots of email back and forth. Instead of having to scan the agreement, I can take the agreed-upon language, ask the AI to improve for clarity and suggest where it should go in the agreement. Everything I knew about legal writing has gone out the window. I feel like I’m doing more partner-level work because LinkSquares does the initial pass and my job is solely to edit.” - Baber Khan, General Counsel @ Nadel
Takeaways
Redlining in Word is straightforward but does not replace the power of a CLM solution. Implementing a Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) system that integrates with Word can significantly streamline the process, especially one with generative AI built in.
See it in action — request a demo of LinkSquares today!
