Microsoft® Word 2007 Bible

Chapter 50. Comparing and Combining Collaborative Documents

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Comparing two documents using "legal blackline"

• Combining documents from multiple independent reviewers

• Combining documents that contain tracked changes

• Combining documents that don't contain tracked changes

In this chapter, we'll look at Word's facilities for comparing and combining different versions of the same document. If the document was revised without tracking turned on, you'll learn how to compare the two different versions. If a document was revised by multiple people, whether or not Track Changes was turned on, you'll learn how to combine all of the different edits into a single (hopefully manageable) document.

Comparing Using Legal Blackline

Word enables you to compare two documents, usually different versions of the same document, using what Microsoft calls legal blackline. Basically, you feed Word two documents, designating one as the original document and the other as the revised document. Microsoft then creates a third document (the default setting) with markup indicating the changes. Perhaps not surprisingly, this new document contains tracked changes, and you can use Word's Review ribbon tools to manage the document, to decide what to keep and what to zap. See Chapter 49, "Security, Tracking, and Comments," for a discussion and description of working with tracked changes.

Note

Legal what? None of the lawyers consulted had ever heard of the phrase "legal blackline." Redlining, yes. Blacklining, no. ...