Introduction
It is possible to compare 2 document versions in order to track the changes between them. This means that you do not need to use tracked change mode in a document that you are updating following a review for example. An example use case: you expect to start with their new version and trigger "Compare document". You would then select the older version when inside the "Compare document versions" modal. The expected document output from this approach would be a document showing what the user had deleted and inserted into their newer version when compared to the older version.
How to compare documents
- From the 'Project' tab, find the document that contains the most recent updates and select "Compare version" from the Actions drop-down menu
- In the 'Compare document versions' dialogue box, select the significant, working or snapshot document version you want to compare with
- Optionally provide a name for this new compared document
- Click on 'Compare' and a new document version will be created, containing tracked change markup and will be visible in the 'Compare' folder
Hints and tips
- The logic works best if you select 'Compare version' on the newer document version and then select the older version to compare it with in the dialogue box.
- You can compare documents that are significant versions, working versions or snapshot versions or a mixture
- You can only compare documents within the same project
- This feature works best if the changes between the documents aren't too significant as there are some known limitations which will be refined for a later release:
- If you insert or delete a quoted structure, the text before it will also be marked up in insert/delete tracked change due to the way the XML is constructed. We will refine this logic so that only the quoted structure is marked as inserted/deleted.
- Moving provision around the document can create more tracked changes than expected due to the changes going on behind the scenes in the XML. We have caught the main provisions but there are some that are likely to need further refinement. The one we know about is moving definitions around in a list. It can result in lots of tracked changes appearing within the list of definitions and we will be working on refining this for the next release. If you spot anything similar when moving different provisions around your document, please report it to us.
- It's possible to accept/reject changes using the 'Review' right-hand panel in your compare document version if required
- You can move 'compare' documents into other folders