Compare documents, Word 2007

[Sesquipedalian Sam]

I am working on some software specs. The first draft went out for
review and came back with some changes. This was followed by a
conference call to go over the changes and agree on revisions.

Now I want to make the changes and then run a document compare to
highlight the changes from the first draft to the second.

I used the Word 2000 Track Changes facility a few times, but had some
problems. I think it had to do with making changes to changes and
getting the changes incorporated. If I made a change, then tried to
come back later and unmake or remake that change, the tracking
mechanism got confused and made the highlighting unnecessarily
complex.

It looks like Word 2007 has a Compare Documents (legal blacklining)
feature. I don't know if this is new. This seems like it might be
better if there are a lot of changes. I can make all of the changes
and then run the compare. Is that correct?

Are Track Changes and Compare Documents two different mechanisms?

What are the tradeoffs?



I ran a little experiment to see how Compare Documents works. I made a
few changes and then ran the compare function. (Review tab, Compare
documents.) I selected the original and revised documents.

Question: The "Label changes with" box contains "XXX". Where did that
come from? Can that be changed?

Question: What is the button in the middle of the panel with 2 arrows
(left/right) for?


All of the Compare Settings are checked except Insertions and
Deletions, which is greyed out.

Question: Why is it greyed out? Does it matter?

"Show changes at" is set to "Word Level".

"Show changes in" is set to "New Document".


When I clicked on OK, I got a whole new document (Compare Result 1)
with four windows. What am I supposed to do with it? Is this the new
master document? Do I save it under some new name? Or is the compare
intended to be run by the reviewer?

Question: I added a heading. The headings are numbered. This caused
all subsequent heading numbers to change, which caused them all to get
flagged as changes. This is unnecessary and cluttered. Is there a way
to turn this off? When I use "Track Changes", this doesn't happen.


I really need to be able to highlight changes and I am hoping to make
it work better now. I'd appreciate some suggestions on the best
procedure.

 

[PamC via OfficeKB.com]

See http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_office_word/default.aspx and
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/trackchanges/HowTrackChangesWorks.html and
below

If I made a change, then tried to
come back later and unmake or remake that change, the tracking
mechanism got confused and made the highlighting unnecessarily
complex.

If you need to change an earlier revision that you made but also need to keep
the that earlier revision i sight in the revision document, change your Word
user name (on the first Word options screen). You could change the name for
each round of revisions and then (iff the color in markup options is set to
per author) see a different color for each reviewer/round.

It looks like Word 2007 has a Compare Documents (legal blacklining)
feature. I don't know if this is new. This seems like it might be
better if there are a lot of changes. I can make all of the changes
and then run the compare. Is that correct? Yes

Are Track Changes and Compare Documents two different mechanisms? Yes

Question: The "Label changes with" box contains "XXX". Where did that
come from? Can that be changed?

Yes. That would usually be used to identify the reviewer the changes (it's
the user name for that document), or you could make it the name for the round
of changes such as "rev3", or some other choice.

Question: What is the button in the middle of the panel with 2 arrows
(left/right) for?

To switch the original and revised documents.

All of the Compare Settings are checked except Insertions and
Deletions, which is greyed out.
Question: Why is it greyed out? Does it matter?

What I see on my computer is that insertions and deletions box is checked,
but greyed. My guess is that ordinarily you can't run compare without
looking for insertions ans deletions.

When I clicked on OK, I got a whole new document (Compare Result 1)
with four windows. What am I supposed to do with it?

It is the result of the comparison. You can do with it what you choose.

Question: I added a heading. The headings are numbered. This caused
all subsequent heading numbers to change, which caused them all to get
flagged as changes. This is unnecessary and cluttered. Is there a way
to turn this off? When I use "Track Changes", this doesn't happen.

No. And are you sure about it not happening with track changes?

I really need to be able to highlight changes and I am hoping to make
it work better now. I'd appreciate some suggestions on the best
procedure.

Highlighting is not a markup option. But you may find something more to your
liking among the available markup options.

PamC