Compare and Merge documents - deletions & insertions both show asinsertions

[Dan Williams]

When I use Compare and Merge documents, all the text that should show
up as deletions (text in the old document that is not in the new one)
are showing up as insertions instead. I can't distinguish between the
insertions and the deletions. When I change the designated colors of
deletions, they show up with whatever color or format I designate for
insertions. What's going on?

This used to work fine in our previous version of Word, when it used
to be called Compare Documents.

If I turn on Tracking and add fresh changes, the fresh changes are in
the proper colors.

I posted the same problem on March 10, but I lost interest because it
temporarlily started working again. Nowadays it almost never works.

When I compare/merge two documents, all the parts that should show up
as deletions are showing up as insertions instead. I can't
distinguish between the insertions and the deletions. When I change
the colors of insertions and deletes, they both show up with whatever
color or format I designate for insertions. What's going on?

I don't remember whether I've seen it working properly or not since we
switched to Word 2003. It used to work fine in the previous version
of Word, when it used to be called Compare Documents.

Word 2003
Windows 2001

Dan Williams
danwPlanet

I also see that someone else posted the problem last August and got no
replies.

I have two almost identical documents. To find the difference I do a "Compare and Merge document" in tools.

Normally deletions would show up in red striketrough and inserts in
underlined blue (because I have set it like that). But somehow everything
show up as "inserts" - also the text elemets that have been deleted.

It does not help to change the sequence of my documents (which one I open
first or use to show my changes).

I have made two very simple documents for testing - here it shows up
correctly. But in my real documents it doesn't work. I have tried to remove
all formatting from both documents - but with no effect. When I insert the
contents of my test documents in my real documents - suddenly these changes
also all show up as inserts...

Any suggestions?

Word 2003
Windows xp

Dan Williams
danwPlanet

 

[grammatim]

Sounds like you should simply run Compare again, but this time open
the two documents in the opposite order.

 

[Dan Williams]

No, that doesn't help.

Dan

Sounds like you should simply run Compare again, but this time open
the two documents in the opposite order.











- Show quoted text -

 

[gkahnlaw]

No, that doesn't help.

Dan

just tried this and it worked - check the legal blackline option in
the dialogue box and then do compare the new document to the old,
rather than old to new. it actually just worked for me. not sure if
this mattered but I unchecked the find formatting box.