Hello Nelson and other interested parties:
I am assuming these are Word files you want to compare? If not then I have
sent the list the incorrect information and I apologize for wasting your
bandwidth.
Comparing Documents in Microsoft Word
The article below was found on P C Magazine's web site and the link
is;
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1819538,00.asp
By M. David Stone
Have you ever discovered two versions of the same Microsoft Word
document on your disk, or one version on your desktop and another on your
notebook, and not known what the difference was between the two files?
Or maybe you've sent someone a file to work on with the Track Changes
feature enabled, so you'd be able to spot any changes easily. When you got
the file back, have you ever found that your collaborator had turned Track
Changes off?
If you answered yes to either of these questions, you'll appreciate
the value of being able to compare two versions of a file. The good news is
that Word has a built-in Compare command. Unfortunately, it's not
immediately obvious how best to use the command, or even where it is. And
before you use it, you'll want to understand just what Word's doing when it
compares files and merges them.
As recently as Word 2000, Word's Compare command was easy to find.
You'd choose Tools | Track Changes | Compare documents, pick a file to
compare to the currently open document, and Word would add the missing
results to the current document.
The Compare feature assumed that the current document was newer.
Anything in it that wasn't also in the file you were comparing it to would
be marked as added text, just as if you had added it with Track Changes on.
Anything from the old file that wasn't in the current document would be
inserted, but marked as deleted text. If you were comparing heavily
formatted documents with multiple columns and the like, Word would sometimes
have trouble matching up the text, and would mark large blocks of unchanged
text as new or deleted. But for comparing lightly formatted documents, the
feature was extremely useful.
In Word 2002 and Word 2003, the Track Changes submenu-and the Compare
command-disappeared. Now you use Tools | Compare and Merge Documents which,
though similar to the old Compare command, is potentially confusing,
especially if you go with the default merge.
To merge documents, choose Tools | Compare and Merge, pick a file to
merge with the currently open file, and choose the Merge button. By default,
Word will open the second file and add the changes from the currently open
file to the second file. If you prefer, however, you can click on the arrow
to the right of the Merge button and choose to merge the changes of the
second file into the current document, or merge both documents into a new
one. Merging documents is easiest when the two versions were both edited
with Track Changes on, but it can be confusing even then. Merged documents
are on an equal footing. Anything marked as deleted in either version will
be marked as deleted in the merged version, and any text added to either
will be marked inserted. You'll then have to sort through the changes and
decide which to keep and which to reject, but at least you'll know that the
deletions were actually deleted by someone, and the additions were actually
added.
If the documents weren't edited with Track Changes on, merging is
messier. Every time Word finds text in one version that's not in the other,
the program will guess whether the text was added from the one document or
deleted from the other. It's often wrong, however; some of the text marked
as inserted may have actually been deleted from one of the files, and some
of the text marked deleted may have been inserted. For any of the marked
text in this scenario, the only thing you can be sure of is that there is a
difference between the files. This simply isn't helpful if you're trying to
discern the specific differences between two versions of a file.
Fortunately, there is another way to compare documents. One of the
check-box options to the left of the Merge button is Legal Blackline. It's
not checked by default, but if you add a check to the box, the Merge button
turns into a Compare button. Choose the Compare button, and Word will
compare the files rather than merge them.
As in earlier Word versions, the Compare feature treats the currently
open file as newer. Any text that's only in the open version will be marked
as inserted, and text that's only in the file you're comparing to will be
marked as deleted. Unlike in earlier Word versions, the results of the
comparison in Word 2002 and Word 2003 will show up in a newly created
document, so the originals remain untouched. Note that the Compare feature
does not handle tracked changes well. If you try to compare files with
tracked changes, Word will tell you that it is going to treat all tracked
changes as already accepted. The better approach is to go through the files
yourself and accept or reject each change. Given how confusing merged files
can be, even if you know that both files were edited strictly with Track
Changes on, you might want to take this approach, then compare the files
instead of merging them.
M. David Stone is a contributing editor of PC Magazine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nelson Blachman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 5:52 AM
Subject: Re: [VICUG-L] comparing two files
: Eddie,
:
: DOS had a command for comparing 2 files. I think it was
:
: fc path1\file1.ext path2\file2.ext
:
: and it gave a sequence of a few lines from each file in the regions where
: they differed.
:
: Perhaps this feature's still available in Windows 9x but probably not XP.
: I wonder if there's a way to add real DOS to XP.
:
: --Nelson
: ----- Original Message -----
: From: "Eddie Montanez" <[log in to unmask]>
: To: <[log in to unmask]>
: Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 3:48 PM
: Subject: [VICUG-L] comparing two files
:
:
: > Hi Listers,
: >
: > I would appreciate your help. I am looking for an application that
would
: > allowed me to compare to files and if any changes are found, a marker
: > would
: > be place on the area of the change. If anybody knows of any program
that
: > would do this, I would really appreciate knowing about it.
: > Thanks a lot.
: > Eddie
: >
: >
: > VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
: > To join or leave the list, send a message to
: > [log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
: > "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
: > VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
: > http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
: >
:
:
: VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
: To join or leave the list, send a message to
: [log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
: "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
: VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
:
:
: --
: No virus found in this incoming message.
: Checked by AVG Free Edition.
: Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.14.23/243 - Release Date: 1/27/2006
:
:
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
|
