Word Training -Comparing and Merging Documents in Word 2003

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Comparing and Merging Documents in Word 2003

To merge comments and changes from several reviewers into one document, follow these steps:

1. Open the document into which you want to merge changes. Most likely, this will be the original version of the document you sent to reviewers before they marked up their copy of the document.
2. Choose Tools | Compare And Merge Documents.
3. Navigate to and select the document that has changes to be merged.
4. Click the Merge button down arrow, and choose Merge Into Current Document on the drop-down menu.  (Merge – merges into the document you select in the Merge dialogue box)
5. Repeat steps 2 through 4 to merge other reviewers' edits into the current document.

When you merge documents, you might see a message box stating that the documents being merged have one or more conflicting formatting changes. Word can store only one set of formatting changes at a time. When you merge multiple documents, you might have to choose whether you'd like to keep formatting from the current document or use the formatting in the document being merged. Select the document you want to use for formatting changes, and then click Continue With Merge. If you click Cancel, the merge procedure is aborted. If you don't want to incorporate formatting changes from the merged documents, you can clear the Find Formatting check box in the Compare And Merge Documents dialog box before you conduct a merge procedure.
For best results when merging changes from multiple reviewers, choose Tools | Options, click the Security tab, and verify that the Store Random Number To Improve Merge Accuracy check box is selected.

Legal BlackLine
You can use the Legal Blackline option in the Compare And Merge Documents dialog box to compare two documents and display the changes in a separate file. When you do this, both documents remain unaltered and a new third document is created automatically. You should use this option only when you're comparing two documents; if you need to compare more than two documents, you should use a different merge option.
To use the Legal Blackline option, follow these steps:

1. Open the edited copy of a document, and choose Tools | Compare And Merge Documents.

2. In the Compare And Merge Documents dialog box, select the original document, select the Legal Blackline check box, and then click Compare.

3. If either of the documents has tracked changes, you'll see a message box stating that Word will treat the tracked changes as if they've been accepted. Click Yes to continue the comparing procedure.

The new document displays the changed text in an unnamed document file. You'll need to save and name the file if you want to store the file for future use.

Comparing Versions
Create versions, and save an earlier version with a different name and then compare and merge.