Comparing Two Versions of a Word Document - 2nd method
by Joshua Lewis
So yesterdary, I mentioned one way that you can compare two different doccument versions of Word using built in tools. Today, I’ll show you another way. It takes a little more work, and is a little more ugly, but the results are actually more accurate.
In addition to Microsoft Word, you’ll also need a copy of WinMerge.
Let’s start.
- Open the first Word document (in Word).
- Select File | Save-As (F12).
- Change the Save as Type to “Text Only with Line Breaks (*.txt)”Word Save-As Text
- Make sure that the filename is now different from the original. (This usually happens automatically, changing the extension from .doc to .txt)
- Click OK
- When Word warns you that you’ll be losing the formatting, click OK.
- Repeat the above with a second file.
- Now that you have ASCII text or versions of the two were documents, you can compare those with WinMerge, or another compare tool.
Give it a shot, and let me know what you think. Or, if you have an idea, send that and I’ll post it, along with a plug to your site.
word, microsoft, microsoft office, winmerge, compare, docs, files, merge
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