compareDocs 4.2 simplifies document comparison and review

Global News

16
Dec
2015

Editor

DocsCorp, a global leader in integrated document workflow solutions and technologies, today announced a new release of its ground-breaking document comparison tool compareDocs, which enables users to compare 2 versions of a document for differences.

The 4.2 release significantly enhances the workflow for reviewing document changes as well as simplifying the process of comparing Excel to Excel and PowerPoint to PowerPoint.

Review document changes more efficiently

Commenting on the release, Dean Sappey, DocsCorp President and Co-founder said “this release introduces new features and enhancements designed to facilitate the process of reviewing document changes in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint files so they can be quickly and easily understood. This is currently not the case with many comparison tools where a significant amount of time is spent trying to decipher what has changed and where. This is particularly true in the case of MS Excel and PowerPoint comparisons.”

With compareDocs, changes made to a document are presented in a third document – the Comparison Report. This document can be marked up with track changes, allowing the user to accept/reject the changes and to continue working on the document; or, as a redline document, which as a “static” document is intended to show the changes only.

compareDocs 4.2 extends the Reviewing pane in MS Word to include redline comparison reports. Previously, this was only available for track changes reports. Users who output the comparison report as a redline will be able to navigate through the changes by simply clicking on the change in the Reviewing pane to see it in the context of the document. Furthermore, users will be able to search for specific changes as well as modifying the view to sort by change type; insertions, deletions or moves.

Deeper integration with MS Office 

Another powerful enhancement will allow users to compare Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations for changes so that they can be viewed and understood more easily. For example, users will be able to load 2 Excel workbooks into compareDocs and click the compare button to see the differences at a glance. Users will see changes made to formulas as well as calculations, text and images. Changes can be viewed line by line, or cell by cell.

Document comparison with a difference

compareDocs is a breakthrough technology, one that compares Word and PDF documents natively rather than converting documents to a proprietary format for comparing. It works at the binary, or direct file level, which results in a faster and more accurate comparison result. Also, this approach eliminates the possibility of document corruption and the loss of document formatting and styles. The compareDocs user interface is deliberately simple and intuitive. Based on the MS Office 2013 look and feel, it is intended to be immediately familiar. Simply, drag and drop documents from a local or network drive, document management system or from MS Outlook onto the interface and click Compare. Comparison reports can be output as either redline or track changes documents.