Merging edits in documents

[jmt356]

Merging documents in Word

A colleague and I were both editing a file simultaneously. We want to merge our edits.

If I go to Review | Compare | Combine and select my document as the original and the colleague’s as the revised document, then I understand Word will mark additions I made in my file as deletions in the new file and additions made in my colleague’s file as additions in the new file. This is because Word will have no way of determining that the text I entered in my document is text that I entered; it will see that text as being in the original file and will believe that my colleagued deleted this text in revised document.

But if I select my colleague’s document as the original and my document as the revised document, then I understand Word will mark additions my colleague made as deletions in the new file and additions made in my file as additions in the new file. In other words, Word will do the opposite of what is described in the preceding paragraph.

How can I get Word to recognize additions made by both of us from the original file and to mark all additions as additions in tracked changes in the new file? Will this occur if the original and revised documents that are selected are both in tracked changes?

[StuartR]

If you still have a copy of the original document then you can merge your edits into that version, and then merge the other document into the output.

[jmt356]

I have the original version and my edited version. How do I merge my edits into the original version? And once I merge my edits into the original version, what will be the difference between my edited version and the original version with my edits merged in?

[StuartR]

You use review/compare as you mentioned in your original post. This will produce a document showing everything you did as a tracked change

[jmt356]

This worked. But what I don't understand is how Word knew to highlight my changes as tracked changes. I did not track my changes. Somehow Word was able to identify the changes I made and those that my colleague made and highlighted both sets of changes in tracked changes when I chose Review | Compare | Combine.

[Charles Kenyon]

Compare and combine are two separate processes.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uIvf8Y0_tE

• https://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/t ... _Documents

• https://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/t ... ment_Merge