How to Compare Two Word Document

Sometimes you send your word document to a friend or colleague in order to read it or make comment on it or change the part of it that may need to modify. In this article, we are going to explain how to compare two Word documents in Microsoft word 2010 and 2019 and how to hide or show the original or revised document and accept or reject changes of the original text.

How to Compare Documents in Word in Windows

Microsoft Word 2010

How to Compare Two Word Documents

In Microsoft Word you are able to compare two similar documents and find any differences in them.You do not need to do anything special to compare two similar files in Microsoft Word, just follow the steps below:

1. The first thing you need to do is open a Word file.

2. Then in the Microsoft Word toolbar, select the Review tab and click on the Compare drop-down menu.

3. Now select Compare in the menu that opens.

Now the Compare document window will open. In this window, you must choose and enter both documents, in the Original document you choose the first document and in the Revised document section you choose the second document.

4. Click the folder file on the right to access the location of the saved documents.

In the Label changes with section, you can attach a tag to your revised document so that you can identify which document the difference belongs to. Note that you can only add one tag to the revised document, on the other hand you are able to switch between two documents by clicking on the double arrow icon.

5. You can click on More to use and view more advanced options. Most of the options are clear and enabled already. Note that the Show changes at option shows the unique changes of one character or one word which is made at a time.

6. Now click on Ok. Now Microsoft Word will search different sections of documents. From left to right, you will see a list of the whole changes. A complete image of the Revised document will be shown with a red border on the left and two pages on the right is one for the main document and one for the revision document.

7. With the use of your mouse, you can move all three parts at the same time. You can also use the scroll bar to the right side of each section to move or move each one individually.

How to Find the Differences and Similarities Between Files in Word

The Revisions window is very useable in this section. Because it displays any changes that have been made, added or deleted from top to bottom in the document. This method is very wonderful and useful for viewing the changes in the content and the documents format at a glance. By clicking on each entry in the Revisions section, the other sections will immediately go to the corresponding position.

When you use the Revisions tab to look for the specific revisions, you are able to right-click on the related text in the middle. Then click on Accept and Reject to apply or cancel the changes.

Finally you can save the compared document as a new file that does not affect any of the documents you are currently viewing. To save the document, just click on the File tab and select Save as. Then save it like any other Word document.

• You need to know that the Compare feature is not accessible for encrypted or password protected documents. You can easily change these settings by choosing the Review tab and selecting the Track Changes option.

Microsoft Word 2019

Here we are two document, document 1 is original but document 2 was sent to someone and it was changed by him.

Now we are going to compare these two files.

1- Open new file and go to Review ribbon.

2- Click on compare and choose first option.

3- In compare dialoge at the left side import your original file.

4- In right side import your revised document.

5- You can write the name of Reviewer in the “Label changes with” part.

6- Click on More key,

Here you can define comparison settings.

7- Also you can define for program changing letter is important or not, for instance upper or lower case,

If it is important choose Character level,

If it is not choose Word level.

8- Here you can define you want to see your compared file in Revised document, Original or New document.

9- Click on ok.

10- In the left side you have Reviewing Pane, If you want to change it horizantal pane you can go to Reviewing pane and change the location.

How to Hide or Show Original or Revised document;

11- In the right side you can see original and revised document.

If you want to Hide both of them or show only one of them you can go to

• Compare

• Show source documents

choose one of these option.

How to Accept or Reject changes;

1- Go to change box.

2- Place your cursor on the Compared document.

3- You can move from each comment or change, by pressing Previous or Next key.

4- You can also accept or reject changes.

5- Save as your file with new name.