If you have ever shared a Google Docs document with a team for feedback, you know how chaotic it can become when multiple people edit the same document simultaneously. One colleague might delete a paragraph you carefully wrote, while another rewrites your heading without any explanation. Without a system to track what changed, important content can be lost forever.
Google Docs provides a powerful collaboration feature called Suggesting Mode. When a collaborator switches to this mode, their edits are not applied directly to the document. Instead, every change they make is displayed as a visible, colour-coded suggestion that the document owner can individually accept or reject, preserving full editorial control.
How to Switch to Suggesting Mode
- Open the shared Google Docs document in your web browser.
- Look at the top-right corner of the screen, just below the Share button. You will see a small icon with a pencil. Clicking on it reveals a dropdown menu with three modes:
- Editing: Your changes are applied directly (the default mode).
- Suggesting: Your changes appear as visible proposals.
- Viewing: You can only read the document.
- Select Suggesting.
The pencil icon will change to a green pencil with a small comment bubble, confirming you are now in Suggesting mode.
How Suggestions Appear
Once you are in Suggesting mode, every edit you make will be visually highlighted:
- Text you add: Appears in a unique colour (assigned to your Google account) with an underline.
- Text you delete: The original text remains visible but with a strikethrough line, showing exactly what was removed.
- Formatting changes: Appear as annotation bubbles in the right margin, explaining the formatting change (e.g., “Heading 2 → Heading 3”).
Each suggestion also generates a small comment card in the right margin of the document, showing the name of the person who made the suggestion and a timestamp.
How to Accept or Reject Suggestions
The document owner (or anyone with editing permission) can review each suggestion individually.
- Click on any highlighted suggestion in the document body, or click on its corresponding comment card in the right margin.
- Two small icons will appear: a checkmark (✓) and an X.
- Click the checkmark to accept the suggestion. The proposed change will be permanently applied to the document, and the highlighting will disappear.
- Click the X to reject the suggestion. The proposed change will be discarded, and the original text will be fully restored.
How to Accept or Reject All Suggestions at Once
If a document contains dozens of suggestions and you trust the editor, you can process them in bulk.
- Click Tools in the top menu bar.
- Hover over Review suggested edits.
- A sidebar will appear, allowing you to click Accept all or Reject all.
Replying to Suggestions
If you are unsure about a suggestion, you can start a threaded conversation directly on the comment card. Click the Reply field on the suggestion card, type your question or feedback, and press Enter. The original suggester will receive a notification and can respond, creating a focused discussion about that specific edit without cluttering the main document.