Advanced Comparison of Word Documents

[[Update: Some readers have reported that the images in the post are not showing-up. Here's a .docx version of the post if you are seeing that issue: http://stunna42.members.winisp.net/AdvancedCompareOfWordDocuments.docx]] 

With mortgage rates dipping as low as 4.5%, my fiancée and I have been doing a bit of refinancing comparison shopping. And in this economy we had to make sure our bases were covered. And covering our bases was a lot easier by comparing the myriad versions of the refinancing documents in good 'ole Word 2007. So let's build off my previous post on Compare, and get down into the details that will save you quite a bit of time and effort the next time you need to deeply understand the difference between two documents.

I'm assuming that you know how to start a document comparison in Word 2007 (or that you will now read my previous post that talks about how to do it), so let's talk about the daunting dialog you see once you have started your comparison:

You'll note that, by default, all of the comparison settings are set. Let me explain why generally, and then I'll get into what each does.

Generally, you can think of a check in each of these boxes as saying: "I care about changes made to [insert Comparison Setting]." This means that, by default, you are telling Word that you care about every possible change between two versions of a document. And while this is often what you want—and thus why it is the default—you may want to get fancy and uncheck some of the boxes from time to time to reduce the "noise" in the comparison. For example, it is possible that changes to the formatting, casing, spacing, and headers and footers of your document do not materially change the meaning of the document. If they don't change the meaning, you may not care about changes made to them, and you can uncheck these Comparison Settings to reduce the "noise" of the comparison.

Now, on to the specifics:

• Moves – If content was copy and pasted, do you want Word to mark it as moved?
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about showing moves…deletions and insertions are fine)
• Comments – If the content within a comment is changed, do you want Word to put both versions of the comment into the document? Note: We create two comments because change-tracking mark-up is not supported in Comments.
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about changes to content within comments)
• Formatting – If the formatting of content changes, do you want Word to mark that up?
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about formatting changes)
• Case Changes – If the casing of content changes, do you want Word to mark that up?
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about casing changes)
• White Space – If the amount of white space in the document changes, do you want Word to mark that up?
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about white space changes)
• Tables – If the structure or content within tables changes, do you want Word to mark that up?
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about structural changes to tables or changes to text in tables)
• Headers and Footers – If anything in headers or footers changes, do you want Word to mark that up?
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about changes in my headers and footers)
• Footnotes and endnotes – If anything in footnotes or endnotes changes, do you want Word to mark that up?
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about changes in my footnotes or endnotes)
• Textboxes – If anything in text boxes changes, do you want Word to mark that up?
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about changes in my text boxes)
• Fields – If anything in fields changes, do you want Word to mark that up?
  • Yes = checked
  • No = unchecked (I don't care about changes in my fields)

Note: Settings that deal with the objects or actions that can exist or happen within "containers" supersede settings that deal with the "containers" themselves. Two examples:

1. Check Textboxes (container), uncheck the Formatting (something you do in a container), change the formatting in a Textbox, compare, and Word won't find any changes. The stuff you do in the container wins.
2. Check Headers and Footers (container), uncheck Tables (object that can exist in a container, and also is a container itself), change the contents of a table in a Header, compare, and Word won't find any changes. The setting dealing with the object that can exist in a container (table) beats-out the container (header).

   In sum, the lowest level setting wins.

Now for the Show changes settings:

• Show changes at…Character level: Select this if you want "dog" vs. "dogs" to be marked-up as "dogs"
• Show changes at…Word level: Select this if you want "dog" vs. "dogs" to be marked-up as "dogdogs"
• Show changes in…Original document: Select this if you want the first document you selected to get marked-up
• Show changes in…Revised document: Select this if you want the second document you selected to get marked-up
• Show changes in…New document: Select this if you don't want either document to get marked-up

And now to ensure we don't lose sight of the forest for the trees, here again is why you care about Compare and want you'll want to use it.

Don't these documents look the same? Aren't you busy? Given how similar they look and how busy you are, why not just sign the Proposed Final Version?

Running a comparison reveals the answer in a few seconds.

Shady Lenders, LLC hates document comparison. I love document comparison, and you will too the next time you are dealing with multiple versions of the same document.

- Jonathan