How To Compare Two Word Documents

Knowing how to compare two Microsoft Word documents will allow you to review any changes between the two documents. Word is a very powerful Microsoft application and the ability to compare two Word documents may easily shorten your review by hours. The below instructions are for comparing two documents in Word 2007. Other Word versions may differ. Always consider looking up the exact procedure in the Help menu if you are confused.

To compare two Microsoft Word documents, you will need:

• A computer loaded with Microsoft Word.
• Two versions of the same document. It's not important that they be sequential versions, such as version 1 and 2 or version 2 and 3. You can easily compare versions 1 and 10.

1. Go to the menu bar at the top of the Word application and check "Review." There are many items under the Review menu, one of which is the "Compare" menu. Click "Compare."
2. Once you click "Compare" on the Word menu bar, you will see two options: "Compare" and "Combine." The "Compare" menu will open and ask you to select the two documents; the "Original document" (which should be the earliest version you want to compare) and the "Revised document." If you need to browse to the location of either file, click the little icon that looks like a file folder.
3. Click "OK" once you've got both document selected.
4. Both documents will appear on screen. Also appearing on screen will be a synopsis of the data changes from one version of the document to the next.
5. Scrolling through one document will also scroll through the second so you'll be able to view the changes on the screen at the same time.