Merge and Compare Functions Work Precisely Backwards!

[fizzicist]

Word 2004 Help says that to merge a document with changes into the
original, open the original, then pull down the Tools menu to "Merge
Documents...", and then select the document whose changes you want to
merge into the current document. The result is supposed to be that the
changes are added to the original as Tracked Changes, but that's not
what happens.

In fact, I'm getting all kinds of nutty results, including a prompt
about "format changes" that makes no sense at all. OF COURSE there are
format changes; that's part of the review process...why is Word
treating them like they're some kind of error?

Here's another bizarre result: Let's say that one of the changes in
the reviewed document is a deleted word that has been replaced by
another word. When I perform the merge precisely as described in Word
Help, I get BOTH the original (deleted) word AND the new (replacement)
word showing up as tracked changes...not in the original document, but
in the changed (reviewed) document. I should only have the replacement
word showing up as a tracked change, and it should be in the original
document. The whole thing is backwards.

Anyhow, the bottom line is this: The only way I can get the documents
to merge properly is to open the one with changes first, then pull
down to "Merge Documents...", and select the original document second.
That puts the reviewed changes into the original document as tracked
changes, but that is precisely the opposite of the procedure specified
by Word Help. What's up with that?

A similar problem occurs in "Compare Documents"; I have to open them
in precisely the reverse order specified by Word Help in order to get
it to work properly. I videoconferenced with an associate today who's
also running Word 2004, and I had him try the same procedures; he got
exactly the same results.

Is there any way to straighten this mess out? It's not exactly a real
confidence builder. Does Microsoft know about this? Where can I submit
a bug report?

 

[John McGhie]

Well, I am a little puzzled. It seems to be working OK here.

But you seem to be reading different Help to me. This is what I see:

Compare two copies of a document
1. Open the edited copy of the document.
2. On the Tools menu, point to Track Changes, and then click Compare
Documents.
3. Open the original document.
4. If neither version of the document contains tracked changes, Microsoft
Word displays a copy of the document with revision marks indicating what
changed from the original.
If either version of the document contains tracked changes, Word displays a
message box. To compare the documents, click Yes. Word displays a copy of
the document with revision marks indicating what changed from the original.

Word 2004 Help says that to merge a document with changes into the
original, open the original, then pull down the Tools menu to "Merge
Documents...", and then select the document whose changes you want to
merge into the current document. The result is supposed to be that the
changes are added to the original as Tracked Changes, but that's not
what happens.

In fact, I'm getting all kinds of nutty results, including a prompt
about "format changes" that makes no sense at all. OF COURSE there are
format changes; that's part of the review process...why is Word
treating them like they're some kind of error?

It's not. Word 2004 has the upgraded Track Changes engine that has the
ability to spot changes that involve only changes to formatting. Word
prompts you whether or not you wish to see them, because the previous
Compare Documents and Track Changes mechanism considered formatting to be
"Not a change". In my work, I prefer not to see formatting marked as
changes, because I am more interested in whether the meaning has changed.
*I* will put the format right after I've sorted the text out

Here's another bizarre result: Let's say that one of the changes in
the reviewed document is a deleted word that has been replaced by
another word. When I perform the merge precisely as described in Word
Help, I get BOTH the original (deleted) word AND the new (replacement)
word showing up as tracked changes...not in the original document, but
in the changed (reviewed) document. I should only have the replacement
word showing up as a tracked change, and it should be in the original
document. The whole thing is backwards.

No: You are comparing a document with a document that also contains tracked
changes. Word warns you not to do this, because the result can be highly
confusing. However, the "difference" between the two documents is that you
have both an insertion and a deletion in one of them: both need to be
brought into the original.

I normally resolve all the tracked changes in both copies of the document
before comparing. If you do not, you run the risk that one change will
coincide with another: in those cases, Word may not be able to show you both
changes.

Anyhow, the bottom line is this: The only way I can get the documents
to merge properly is to open the one with changes first, then pull
down to "Merge Documents...", and select the original document second.

Which is what my copy of the Help advises.

That puts the reviewed changes into the original document as tracked
changes, but that is precisely the opposite of the procedure specified
by Word Help. What's up with that?

I don't know: The Word Help is now updateable: yours may not have updated
and mine may have done so, although I was not aware that it had.

Is there any way to straighten this mess out? It's not exactly a real
confidence builder. Does Microsoft know about this? Where can I submit
a bug report?

Here, or on the Microsoft web site. However, I am not sure that you have a
bug there. What you are describing is the way they designed it to work.
However, your Help may be out of date.

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

It's not exactly a real
confidence builder. Does Microsoft know about this? Where can I submit
a bug report?

You can send messages directly to the MacBU of MS by using Send Feedback
under Help in any app, which just takes you to this website:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/feedback/suggestion.asp

You can cut and paste into the message box and it appears to accept at least
a page or so.

DM

 

[fizzicist]

Hi John:

Many thanks for your reply. My responses are interposed below.



(snip)

Word 2004 has the upgraded Track Changes engine that has the
ability to spot changes that involve only changes to formatting. Word
prompts you whether or not you wish to see them, because the previous
Compare Documents and Track Changes mechanism considered formatting to be
"Not a change". In my work, I prefer not to see formatting marked as
changes, because I am more interested in whether the meaning has changed.
*I* will put the format right after I've sorted the text out

It seems to me that the determination as to whether formatting should
be considered a change is up to the reviewing policy for the project
or document being reviewed. Word's "Track Changes" preferences does
allow the user to select whether formatting changes will be "marked"
(that is, marked with, say, underlining or double underlining), but as
far as I know it always tracks all formatting changes if they're made
while Track Changes is turned on. That includes inserting the "changed
line" mark in the document border; if that marker is turned on in
Preferences, it flags any line with a change in it, including
formatting changes...even if the preferences are set not to mark
formatting changes.

On my version of Word 2004, it also inserts a change balloon in the
right margin. As long as I'm showing any markup at all, formatting
changes are marked in at least those two ways, even if the Preferences
are set not to mark them with their own unique markup style. So, Word
is unquestionably tracking the formatting changes at all times if
Track Changes is turned on. That is, the decision has already been
made for the user by Word 2004; if Track Changes is turned on when you
make formatting changes, those changes WILL be tracked. The only
option available to the user is whether they are explicitly identified
by a third, unique means in the markup. They're going to have the
other two whether you want them or not.

For me, that's not a drawback. In the kind of documents I work with,
formatting is a part of the symbolic structure of the message; that
is, the formatting contains INFORMATION. It's not possible to exclude
the formatting from the process of determining whether the meaning has
changed. Some of the meaning is visually encoded in the formatting.

I guess that's why the prompt seems so bizarre to me; it seems to
deprecate the role that formatting plays in the parallel visual
processing channel, which provides considerably higher bandwidth than
the visual/textual channel alone (the "plain text" channel); that is,
formatted text is able to carry more information. That's why
formatting is used; it's an aid to comprehension and explicitness.
Your explanantion helps, so thanks for that. But from my perspective,
the prompt makes very little sense in the way it is worded.

(snip)

I normally resolve all the tracked changes in both copies of the document
before comparing. If you do not, you run the risk that one change will
coincide with another: in those cases, Word may not be able to show you both
changes.

Well, in the Merge Documents test I ran before my first post, it had
no problem inserting both the original word (which is not a change)
and the changed word (which is a change, relative to the original) as
tracked changes. That is an unexpected result. When I merge a document
with changes into the original, I don't expect to see both words
showing up with one appended directly to the other (no space
separating them), both of them indicated as a tracked change with
equal emphasis. If that method of handling merged changes is a new
feature of Word 2004, so be it. But I'd rather see it the way it
displays when I merge the documents using the procedure that is the
reverse of the one in my version of Word Help.

Which is what my copy of the Help advises.


I don't know: The Word Help is now updateable: yours may not have updated
and mine may have done so, although I was not aware that it had.

It appears that the version of Word Help (which is the one that came
with my original application CD) is not the same one you have. I have
checked with another associate who is running Word 2003 for Windows,
and the Merge Documents procedure in his Word Help precisely matches
the one in mine. The only difference is that he is able to merge two
documents by following that procedure, and I'm only able to do it
properly if I use the reverse procedure, as I originally posted it. My
version is the Student and Teacher Edition. I presume that the other
associate who confirmed that his Help procedure is the same as mine
must also have the Student and Teacher Edition, but I'll follow up on
that to be certain. If that's the case, then it appears we have smoked
out a bug in the Help documentation, if not in the software itself.
Somehow, the Word Help documentation in the Student and Teacher
Edition of Office 2004 describes the Word 2003 for Windows Merge
Documents procedure, not the one that you have.

Here, or on the Microsoft web site.

(snip)

I could assume that my having posted this will have ensured that it
will be picked up by Microsoft as a Help documentation bug report, but
perhaps I'd better follow a more explicit means of delivering that
message. ;-)

Thanks again, John!

 

[fizzicist]

Hi Daiya:

Thanks for your reply. The method you suggested is the route I will
follow. I was unable to find any method of submitting a Word 2004 bug
report in my search of the MS web site. In fact, I wasn't able to find
much of anything in the MS Knowledge Base on Word 2004. My search
using the term "Word 2004" returned only four results that were
specifically about Word 2004. All the others contained "Word" and
"2004" as separate words in different contexts -- mostly items about
Word 2003 dated sometime in 2004.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[Beth Rosengard]

(snip)

I could assume that my having posted this will have ensured that it
will be picked up by Microsoft as a Help documentation bug report, but
perhaps I'd better follow a more explicit means of delivering that
message. ;-)

Use the Send Feedback feature on Word's Help menu.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>