You need to compare documents in many situations. Editing a word document is easy when you compare it with another one. It’s not impossible to compare words with your own eyes and hands. But, with the help of technology you can do it even better.
Microsoft Word makes this easier for us as you can compare documents by using the Compare tool from Word. You can also use other apps and websites to compare documents but the online apps will be less trustable than Microsoft apps.
Why to Compare Documents?
Comparing documents is important for business holders, legal professionals and students. By using this feature you will be able to compare and create duplicates of one document. Legal professionals use this to make revisions since they handle memorandums, contracts, agreements and many more. Comparing documents have following added advantage:
- Time saving
- Side by side view of documents
- Easy to make revisions
- Easy to view changes
Comparing Two Word Documents Using Word
In MS Word, you compare two word documents and create another document. The third document is created by comparing and merging the other two documents. The original documents will not be edited when doing this.
The changes made by comparing the documents are shown in highlighted form which makes it easier to point out the changes. Here’s how to use the Compare tool to compare two documents on MS Word.
- Open MS Word
- Open the document you want to compare
- Click on Review from the top menu bar
- Click on Compare
- Click on Compare Documents.
- Insert the original file under the Original Document box
- Insert the document you want to compare under the Revised Document box.
- Put a label for the changes
- Click on OK
Now, you will see these four word boxes:
- Original Document: The Original document is untouched and no changes will be made there.
- Compared Document: The changes and edits are done in the Compared Document box.
- Revised Document: After making changes and edits and revising the document completely, the final document is shown in the Revised Document box.
- Revisions: When you make changes in the Compared document, they are shown in the Revision Box. The number of revisions are also counted and shown in the Revision box.
You can also accept, reject and make other changes. After finishing up the document press Ctrl + S to save the file.
Comparing Documents Online
If the Compare tool from MS Word does not work for you or doesn’t satisfy you then you can also try using other apps and sites for comparing documents. There are plenty of apps in the market that can be used to compare word documents.
But, some apps and sites are not trustable and can have security issues. You should not trust any app for comparing any kind of confidential or important documents. Here are some of the best apps to use to compare word documents.
Google Docs
You can also compare two word documents in the google docs. But you can not compare Excel, Powerpoint or PDF files in the Google docs.
Follow these steps to compare two word documents in Google docs:
- Open Google Docs
- Open a document
- Click on Tools from the top menu bar.
- Click on Compare documents
- Under the Select the comparison document, click on My Drive
- Choose one document to compare
- Click on Open
- Set a label under Attribute differences to:
- Check the box Include comments from the selected document
- Click on Compare
- Click on Open
Other Apps
Draftable is a free online app that is used to compare documents. It also has subscriptions for other facilities but you can use it for free online. You can compare Word, Excel, PDf files in this app. There are also various choices of fonts, styles and other tools. The changes in the original document and the revised document are highlighted in red and green color in this app.
With diffchecker, you can compare image files, source codes, and folders. You can use different tools in this app and also see the revision history. The original text and changed text are shown side by side. You can also export the changed text to pdf or just save it as a file with this app.
