Compare Documents does not work properly

[aabidi]

I am working on a long (45000 word) Word X document, with a final
version and a draft. I want to compare the two to show highlighted
changes with Tools>>Track Changes>>Compare Documents. My problem is
that the comparison is only partial. It stops after fifteen or twenty
pages, always the same. Does anyone know why it would not compare the
entire document?

Thanks.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

That's 150 pages or so?

Compare Documents is a tad iffy on long documents. You could try breaking
it into natural sections. It's also possible that Compare Documents
encounters corruption/corrupted table/corrupted section break and that stops
it, particularly since it always stops in the same place--for that, see the
fixes here:
http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/DocumentCorruption.htm
(hit reload a few times in Safari, if that doesn't work, try Explorer)

It's also important to update Word X.
http://word.mvps.org/macWordNew/update.htm
(hit refresh a few times in Safari, or use a different browser)

 

[Elliott Roper]

I am working on a long (45000 word) Word X document, with a final
version and a draft. I want to compare the two to show highlighted
changes with Tools>>Track Changes>>Compare Documents. My problem is
that the comparison is only partial. It stops after fifteen or twenty
pages, always the same. Does anyone know why it would not compare the
entire document?

Has one or both of them had track changes run on it already? Make a
copy. Accept all changes. Try again. You might also try the famous
de-corrupting folk remedy. Select all but the last paragraph mark in
the whole document, copy and then paste into a new blank document.

Track changes in v.X is full of nasty surprises. You might find it
helpful to try the same operation on 2004 if all else fails. The free
trial is save disabled, but it might be a useful diagnostic aid for
your problem.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Elliott,

The free
trial is save disabled, but it might be a useful diagnostic aid for
your problem.

The 2004 demo is save disabled? As in you can create a doc, but can't save
it? Seriously?

Daiya

 

[Elliott Roper]

Elliott,

The 2004 demo is save disabled? As in you can create a doc, but can't save
it? Seriously?

Oops. It is print disabled. I read it wrong too long ago. Just about
every demo of every other big program is save disabled. A poor excuse
for being inaccurate I know. I vainly hope it is the last time I post
something incorrectly on usenet.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Elliott,

Oops. It is print disabled. I read it wrong too long ago. Just about
every demo of every other big program is save disabled. A poor excuse
for being inaccurate I know. I vainly hope it is the last time I post
something incorrectly on usenet.

That's what usenet is for, isn't it? I feel so safe posting something
wrong, I know someone will correct me. (unlike, say, teaching). Sometimes
I post guesses on the principle that my wrong response will draw attention
to an issue.

I was actually just checking before I prepared to throw a fit about the
uselessness of such a demo, though the no printing thing is pretty freakin
un-user friendly.

Daiya

 

[John McGhie]

Yeah: The document is too big!

Word's compare function has some limitations, which were fixed in Word
2002/Word 2004.

The first is that it cannot handle generated text fields larger than 750
characters. For most purposes, this means "remove the Table of Contents
from both documents" before comparing (do it to copies of the documents).

The other problem is that Compare does not handle text boxes, graphics or
any other things that are not in the main text story of the document.

The best fix for this is to install Word 2004. If you can't:

Save both the source and compare documents as Plain Text, then compare those
two with each other. The Compare Document function works reliably with
documents of practically unlimited length. It will mark the text copy with
the exact changes, which you can then quickly find in the originals by eye.

Hope this helps

I am working on a long (45000 word) Word X document, with a final
version and a draft. I want to compare the two to show highlighted
changes with Tools>>Track Changes>>Compare Documents. My problem is
that the comparison is only partial. It stops after fifteen or twenty
pages, always the same. Does anyone know why it would not compare the
entire document?

Thanks.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410