How to Compare Two Word Documents

When someone sends back a document that has been edited without tracked changes turned on, working out what actually changed can be genuinely difficult. Word’s Compare feature solves this by taking two versions of a document and generating a single new document that shows every difference as a tracked change — insertions, deletions and moves — so you can review and accept or reject each one. This guide explains when to use Compare, how it differs from Combine, and how to get the most out of it.

When Would You Use Compare?

The Compare feature is useful in a specific set of situations:

• Before-and-after edits. You sent a report to a colleague and they returned it without tracking changes. Compare your original against their version to see what they changed.
• Contract and legal documents. Lawyers routinely use Compare to produce a redline or blackline — a version showing all differences between a draft and a revised version — before signing.
• Version control without software. If your team saves documents with names like “Proposal_v1”, “Proposal_v2” and so on rather than using version history, Compare is how you diff two saved versions.
• Checking your own edits. If you have rewritten a document and want to confirm you have not accidentally deleted something important from the original, Compare will show you everything that changed.

Compare vs Combine — What Is the Difference?

Word has two similar features that are easy to confuse: Compare and Combine. They are found in the same place in the ribbon and look similar, but they serve different purposes.

Compare is designed for one reviewer. You compare an original document against one revised version. The result shows the differences between those two specific documents. This is the right tool when a single person has edited the document and you want to review their changes.

Combine is designed for multiple reviewers. If three people each made changes to the same original and returned three different files, Combine merges all their changes into one document so you can see everyone’s edits together. Use Combine when you need to consolidate edits from several people.

For most day-to-day purposes — sending a document to one person and reviewing what they changed — Compare is what you need.

How to Use Review > Compare

The Compare tool is straightforward to use once you know where to find it. You need both versions of the document saved on your computer (or accessible from OneDrive or a network drive).

1. Open Word. You do not need to open either version of the document first.
2. Click the Review tab in the ribbon.
3. In the Compare group, click the Compare button.
4. Select Compare from the dropdown (rather than Combine).
5. In the Compare Documents dialog, click the folder icon next to Original document and browse to the original version.
6. Click the folder icon next to Revised document and browse to the edited version.
7. In the Label changes with box, Word will suggest a reviewer name (usually the username on the revised document). You can change this to identify whose changes you are reviewing.
8. Click More to expand the comparison settings if you want to fine-tune what Word looks for — character-level formatting differences, moves, comments, and so on. The defaults work well for most uses.
9. Click OK.

Word generates a new document. Your originals are not changed.

Reading the Three-Pane View

After running Compare, Word opens a three-pane layout that can look overwhelming at first. Here is what each part shows:

• Left pane (Revisions). A scrollable list of every change found, with the reviewer name, type of change (insertion, deletion, formatting) and the text affected. This is the quickest way to review changes one by one.
• Centre pane (Compared Document). The main editing area. Insertions are shown underlined, deletions are shown with strikethrough. Formatting changes may appear as coloured bubbles in the margin. This is the document you will accept changes into.
• Right pane (Original and Revised documents). Word shows both source documents side by side for reference. As you scroll through the compared document, both originals scroll to match so you can see context.

If the three-pane view is too cluttered, you can close the original document panels. Go to Review > Compare > Show Source Documents > Hide Source Documents to remove the right pane and focus on the compared document alone.

Accepting and Rejecting Changes

Once you can see the changes, you review them exactly as you would any tracked changes document:

1. Click on any change in the Revisions pane or in the document itself.
2. To accept a change, click Accept in the Changes group on the Review tab. The change is incorporated into the document and the markup disappears.
3. To reject a change, click Reject. The change is reversed and the original text is restored.
4. To accept or reject all changes at once, click the dropdown arrow beneath Accept or Reject and choose Accept All Changes or Reject All Changes.

Work through the Revisions pane from top to bottom to make sure you have reviewed every change before finalising the document.

Saving the Compared Document

The compared document is a new, unsaved file. Word does not automatically save it or overwrite either of your originals. Once you have accepted and rejected changes and the document looks correct, do a Save As (Ctrl + Shift + S) to save it with a clear name — for example “Proposal_Final_Reviewed.docx”. Keep the original and revised versions too until you are confident the final document is correct.

Tips for Clean Comparisons

A few habits make Compare results easier to read:

• Turn off tracked changes before comparing. If the revised document already has tracked changes in it, Word has to compare tracked changes against tracked changes, which creates a confusing result. Ask your reviewer to accept or reject all changes in their version before sending it back, then use Compare to diff the accepted result against your original.
• Compare clean saves. Documents saved with AutoRecover data or temporary formatting sometimes produce spurious formatting differences. If you see hundreds of formatting-only changes that do not seem meaningful, try saving both documents fresh before comparing again.
• Use consistent reviewer names. If you are running Compare multiple times across different drafts, enter a consistent reviewer name in the Label field so changes from different rounds are easy to distinguish in the Revisions pane.
• Check comments separately. The Compare feature can show comment differences, but reviewing conflicting comments in the three-pane view can be messy. If comments matter, read them directly in the revised document before running Compare.

A Note on Formatting-Only Changes

Word’s Compare feature detects formatting differences as well as text changes. If your colleague changed a heading from bold to not-bold, or adjusted a margin, Compare will flag it. This is useful but can generate a lot of noise in documents with inconsistent formatting. If you only care about text changes, click More in the Compare dialog and untick Formatting under the Show Changes section. This limits the comparison to text insertions and deletions only.