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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 – Document 1.docx
67.2 KB Compare Documents – Document 2.docx
66.3 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

  • Click Compare and open the two documents, Original and Revised, click Ok.

  • A brand new document is created and named Document1.
  • 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.

  • To view the changes in a pane rather than on the actual document screen, Click Reviewing Pane and choose Vertical or Horizontal.

  • 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 All right,
  • 00:05 Microsoft Word on the review ribbon over here has a section called compare.
  • 00:09 You can actually compare two documents side by side.
  • 00:13 So you can look at each of the changes and make the decision whether to keep them or
  • 00:17 not, or you can combine two documents and
  • 00:20 it will merge into one with all the track changes.
  • 00:23 It's really a confusing view and
  • 00:24 it really takes a high level of track changes knowledge.
  • 00:27 So we're not going to work on that one today but
  • 00:30 we are going to do to compare side by side.
  • 00:31 It's actually a pretty cool process.
  • 00:33 Well I'll go ahead and hit Compare.
  • 00:35 I do have one document open right now.
  • 00:37 So even though I have one open, it still makes me go in and choose it.
  • 00:41 And now over here on the revised document, I don't see it on the list.
  • 00:44 So I'll hit my little file folder button and I'll just go ahead and pick it,
  • 00:49 all right?
  • 00:49 And I'm gonna go ahead and change the author name, so
  • 00:53 I know exactly what changes I made.
  • 00:55 Right over here where I have the list open, okay so
  • 00:58 you're going to see a little More button.
  • 01:00 Please hit the More button because the More button gives you all kinds of options
  • 01:04 that you can turn on or turn off.
  • 01:06 But the most important is right down here, show changes in.
  • 01:09 Now I believe that's set as new document.
  • 01:11 I don't want my original or the second one affected,
  • 01:14 I want all the changes in a brand new one.
  • 01:16 So I'm gonna go ahead and hit OK and we're going to continue the process.
  • 01:19 Here we go, the entire screen is going to open up in a brand new document, and
  • 01:24 as you can see on the left hand side I have all the changes here, it's comparing and
  • 01:28 throwing them together on the left.
  • 01:30 But look what happens on the right when I scroll this scroll bar up and down.
  • 01:33 It's called synchronized scrolling.
  • 01:35 I can actually keep tabs on which section I'm looking at and
  • 01:39 if it's not synchronized it means the change has been made in the second one.
  • 01:43 Now your screen might be showing this.
  • 01:45 The review pane might be on.
  • 01:47 It shows me that ten revisions were made, and you can scroll through and
  • 01:50 look at all ten of those.
  • 01:51 But there's so much going on on my screen, I prefer to turn that off right now.
  • 01:55 Now, please notice on the Review ribbon, the Tracking Changes, the Accept Changes,
  • 02:00 and the Compare are all side by side because they go hand in hand.
  • 02:04 You don't just compare a document, you have to go in and accept the changes,
  • 02:08 if you want to keep the brand new original.
  • 02:10 Now personally, as a teacher,
  • 02:12 I'm going to just print this because it just did all my corrections for me.
  • 02:16 Kind of great, but what if you're in the legal field and
  • 02:19 you've got to really compare. What, these two contracts,
  • 02:22 I need to compare these side by side and then you can go through and
  • 02:26 accept all the changes, reject changes, anything you need to do.
  • 02:29 So, I'll go ahead and accept a couple and reject a couple.
  • 02:33 But in the end, to finish this off,
  • 02:34 I'm gonna finally go down here to Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking.
  • 02:38 This was the same thing we chose when in the tracking changes lesson.
  • 02:42 You see, they go hand in hand, that's why they're all located together.
  • 02:46 I'm gonna go ahead and hit this, Accept All Changes and Stop Tracking.
  • 02:50 And there we go, I have a wonderful document.
  • 02:53 I can turn off my Compare, show my source documents, or
  • 02:56 I can hide my source documents.
  • 02:58 At this point, I have a brand-new document.
  • 03:01 And there you go, it's kind of a great feature.
  • 03:04 I've been using this for years in the teaching field just to compare,
  • 03:08 send out electronic text, and when it comes back I'll just hit the Compare,
  • 03:12 my work is done.
  • 03:13 Kind of a nice feature, tucked away on the Review ribbon right over here beside
  • 03:17 the Tracking and the Accepting Changes.
  • 03:19 I hope that works for you.
  • 03:20 Thank you.

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