You can compare documents in Collaborate, either with the HighQ document viewer, or Workshare (if Workshare has been enabled on your instance).
Click here to see the differences between the two comparison engines.
Compare documents with Workshare
This is an advanced feature and will only be enabled if you have a Workshare Compare Everywhere licence. Please contact your account manager for more information.
Comparing two similar documents
Select the two documents you want to compare, using the checkbox next to the names of each document:
And click Actions > Compare.
The Compare screen will display:
In the Compare screen, you will see two sections: Change Summary on the left and the document on the right. The Change Summary breaks down the changes between the two documents.
The red text with a strikethrough is text that has been deleted or replaced. The blue underlined text is the new content that has been added.
You will be shown the total number of changes between the two documents, broken down into deletions, insertions and moves. The content is then further broken down into Content, Numbering, Punctuation, Footnotes, Headers and Footers, and you can select on each of these sections and check over the specific changes made under each of these headings.
You can also:
- Save the document as a pdf
- Save the document as a word document
- Track changes within the document
- Email the document
- Print the document
Additionally, you can hide the Change Summary panel and also navigate through the changes with the Previous change and Next change buttons.
You cannot compare more than two documents at any time. Trying to do so will result in an error message being displayed.
Comparing two versions of the same document
In addition to comparing two separate documents, you can also compare two versions of the same document. To do this, click More actions of the document with versions you want to compare and navigate to Compare latest:
The Compare screen will be displayed:
This Compare screen is the same as the compare documents screen.
Comparing two versions in the file viewer
Open the document with multiple versions directly in the viewer:
Navigate to More actions > Compare latest to display the comparison screen.
Compare documents with the document viewer (Accusoft Viewer)
As of 5.4, you now have the choice of using the document viewer for document comparison, but please note, this will need to be set up before you can use it. To do so, you need to enable document comparison:
Enable document comparison
Firstly, you must ensure that document comparison is enabled. This is something you must contact your CSM or HighQ support for help with.
If available, Workshare Compare takes precedence over document comparison using the Accusoft viewer.
Once document comparison is enabled, you can compare documents.
Comparing documents using the Accusoft viewer
Once the above settings are enabled and set up, you can now compare your documents using the Accusoft viewer.
You can only compare .doc and .docx files using the Accusoft viewer.
To do this, select the documents you want to compare:
And then click Action > Compare:
A document will be displayed in the viewer, detailing the changes between the two documents:
Once you have viewed the comparison, you can Print, Download or View the comparison in more detail using the options in the top right hand of the screen:
Clicking Document Comparison, highlighted above, will display all comparisons in the document:
Please note, if you click on one of the changes found, as shown in the example above, it will take you to the top of the page where the change is, and not to the comparisons exact location.
Differences between Accusoft and Workshare comparison
Either Accusoft or Workshare comparison software can be used for document comparison. However, there are some key differences that you will need to know before choosing which comparison technology to use:
- Accusoft comparison is a new capability added to the system and lacks no of features that WorkShare provides
- Accusoft comparison is a built-in feature and there is no additional cost for it. Workshare comparison is licensed separately
- Accusoft comparison only works with word documents (doc and docx) and does not support comparison of other document types like PDF, which Workshare does
- The user experience with Workshare is much richer than Accusoft:
- When clicking through each difference when using Accusoft, the Accusoft viewer only navigates to the page where the difference is, however, it does not take you to the exact location of the difference.
- With Accusoft viewer, you can compare documents even when you only have view rights to the documents. With Workshare, you need to have edit rights to the documents in order to compare documents
