Computer Training

Microsoft Word 2003 - Revising Word Documents

Comparing and Merging Documents

Another feature in Word is the ability to merge multiple copies of a revised document into the the original document showing each reviewer's changes. For example, you could e-mail the document to several people asking them to review and return the document upon completion with their initials added to the document's name (File | Save As). As the documents are returned you can import them into the ordinal document using Word's Compare and Merge tool. How to:

1. Open the original document that was sent to all reviewers.
2. Click on the menu Tools | Compare and Merge Documents. When the dialog box opens choose one of the returned documents that was revised.
3. Click on the Merge button and choose Merge into current document.
4. Repeat steps two and three to merge other revised documents that are returned.
   
   

Note: Notice the checkmark in the box for Find formatting.

When you import documents that contain different formatting a warning message appears asking from which document should the formatting changes be kept. This is because Word can store only one set of formatting changes at a time. Although, you can elect not to import the formatting changes by removing the checkmark from the box Find formatting in the Compare and Merge dialog box.

 

Displaying Changes Between Two Documents in a Separate File

Another option in the Compare and Merge Documents dialog box is the Legal Black line option, which is used when there are only two documents to compare. Selecting this option creates a third document that imports all tracked changes from prior documents leaving both unaltered.

To use this option follow the steps below:

1. Open the second document that contains the markup. Choose the menu Tools | Compare and Merge Documents.
2. When the Compare and Merge dialog box opens, place a checkmark in the Legal Blackline box and then click on Compare.
3. If either of the documents contains tracked changes, a message box appears stating that Word will consider the changes as accepted. The changes are then merged into a new unnamed document.

Multiple Versions of a Document

Although a Word document can always be saved under a new name (File | Save As), this creates multiple copies and consumes disk space. A better method is to use the Versions command (File | Versions), which saves only the revisions and not the whole document. A document can be saved either manually or automatically.


Manually saving:

1. With the current document open, click on File | Versions.
2. When the Versions dialog box appears, click on the button Save Now and the Save Version dialog box will open. Enter any descriptive comments about the current version in the Comment box.
3. Click on the button OK to save the comments and the version. When you open the Version dialog box the saved versions contain a date and time stamp, the name of the person who save it, and any comments that were entered.

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