How to compare two word documents? [closed]

Question

Businesses Analyst from my team keeps sending us the updated Requirements documents often and I end up hunting the recent changes by comparing the old version. Is their a good way of comparing the Word documents?

Note: We have the track changes option ON, but now the documents looks like a blood bath, complicating it much more :(

Answer 1

Versionate might do the trick.

Answer 2

Use this option in Word 2003:

Tools | Compare and Merge Documents

Or this in Word 2007:

Review | Compare

It prompts you for a file with which to compare the file you're editing.

Answer 3

Attorneys use programs such as Comparewrite and DeltaView as we are comparing documents daily. We call it "blacklining" a document because the differences show up in bold underline for additions and black strike-through for deletions.

Answer 4

Codejacked covers three different methods on how to compare word documents.

Answer 5

You're using the wrong tools. Through the course of my last major project, we managed to convince the entire team to move to a Wiki scheme. Not only did it make tracking changes faster and easier, but it helped organize the information better. Rather than having to keep track of arbitrary indexes in a large text document, hyperlinks were available between documents.

This meant that the documents could naturally flow from high-level to specifics. Implementation of such specs was incredibly easy in comparison to Word docs. Also, the fact that the docs were in a central location ensured that no one was still working from an out of date copy they saved to their hard drive.

I know there can be some internal resistance to moving in new directions. But if you can convince your colleagues that they should be forward thinking and always challenging themselves, they'll give it a shot and become true believers in no time flat. :-)

Answer 6

I don't know how to compare the files individually, since they are binary, but how about making a program that talks to MS Word, copying the contents of the files to a pure-text file? Then you could compare the plain-text files.