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About this lesson

Comparing documents takes two versions of a document and compares for changes.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Compare Documents - Exercise 1.docx
110.5 KB Compare Documents - Exercise 2.docx
110.3 KB Compare Documents - Solution.docx
112.1 KB

Quick reference

Compare Documents

Comparing documents takes two versions of a document and compares for changes. The Track Changes feature is applied and allows you to accept or reject the changes.

When to use

Any time a document has to be checked side-by-side for changes, this is an electronic task that can be done in seconds.

Instructions

Review Ribbon, Compare

Open the two documents:

  1. Click Compare and open the two documents, Original and Revised, click OK.
  2. A brand new document is created and named “Document1”
  3. Track Changes has now been applied to the document and you can use the features in the previous Track Changes lesson to manage the file.
  4. To view the changes in a pane rather than on the actual document screen, Click “Reviewing Pane” and choose Vertical or Horizontal.
  5.  When finalizing a document, click the Accept/Reject buttons and the markup lines in the left margin will disappear.
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  • 00:05 Compare Documents in Microsoft Word is really a great feature, and for
  • 00:09 this exercise there are two files.
  • 00:12 We have an original and
  • 00:14 then we have a finished file that you are then going to compare.
  • 00:17 Now this is often used by teachers who will assign an electronic
  • 00:21 document as homework.
  • 00:23 The student makes the changes, resubmits back to the teacher,
  • 00:27 then the teacher can electronically compare and basically correct the paper.
  • 00:31 All right, so here we go.
  • 00:32 On the review ribbon, if you open the exercise number one,
  • 00:36 on the review ribbon we're gonna go ahead and choose Compare right over here.
  • 00:40 And we have an option to Compare and Combine.
  • 00:43 Now there is a difference here.
  • 00:45 Compare, and they'll look the same, if you just run them, they'll look the same.
  • 00:48 But Compare, take two files, where the originals do not contain track changes,
  • 00:54 compares them together and applies track changes to it.
  • 00:57 Combine will take two files that two different people have already edited and
  • 01:03 used track changes, and it will combine all those track changes into one file,
  • 01:08 which could get confusing if edits were made in the same places.
  • 01:13 So, Combine is for really advanced combinations of track changes,
  • 01:17 compare is for just basic level, which is the one we're going to do.
  • 01:21 So, I'm going to click on Compare, and I'm gonna find my original document.
  • 01:26 Notice that it doesn't matter that I have that document open,
  • 01:29 I still have to go find it.
  • 01:30 And, now I'm gonna compare to the revised document, which is the second document,
  • 01:36 or the finished document or the student's homework assignment.
  • 01:39 All right. Now I'm going to click the More button cuz
  • 01:41 it's always good to click these More buttons so you can see what's happening.
  • 01:44 You have all these choices to turn off for
  • 01:47 the track changes that are about to appear.
  • 01:49 We're going to show changes on the word level.
  • 01:52 And we're gonna show changes in the original and the revised, or
  • 01:55 to a brand new document, which is my choice, and the default setting, but
  • 01:58 you can change it if you like.
  • 02:00 Go ahead and click OK on that and the screen changes.
  • 02:04 Notice at the top it says Document 8.
  • 02:06 It no longer says the names of the other two files cuz a brand new document
  • 02:09 was created.
  • 02:10 It has the track changes marks over in the left-hand margin, and
  • 02:13 as you learned in the tracking video, here's how to manage that.
  • 02:17 Right now just Simple Markup is showing, and I can see the changes and
  • 02:20 I can see that, which lines are applied to.
  • 02:23 But I could change that to All Markup.
  • 02:25 And now I can see exactly what the student, or whoever it was,
  • 02:29 changed everything to.
  • 02:31 So that is how you go through a file and make changes, view everything.
  • 02:36 You can still look at your reviewing pane if you want.
  • 02:39 You can turn that to go vertical on the left or horizontal on the bottom.
  • 02:44 You could save this new file as a final.
  • 02:47 And you can make comments in here and send it back to the student, or
  • 02:51 back to the other person.
  • 02:53 It's really actually pretty great.
  • 02:54 If you want to then be final with this one,
  • 02:57 I would turn off mark up, I would close this.
  • 03:01 And so, this would be the final document, and you could print this.
  • 03:05 All right.
  • 03:06 So that is how you compare documents.
  • 03:08 Again, it's a great feature to know about, either in the office or
  • 03:12 the educational industry, it is an awesome, awesome feature.

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