Comparing and Merging Agreement Documents
Using this feature you can compare or merge any two versions of an agreement document. You can also compare or merge different versions of an agreement document within the same agreement record.
Compare: The comparison is done on the basis of Word's Legal Black lines compare functionality. Compare Legal Black Lines compares the documents and displays only what changed between the two documents. The documents being compared are not changed. This type of comparison is always displayed in a new third document, typically named Compare Result. Microsoft Word displays a new, third document in which tracked changes in the baseline document are accepted and changes in the selected document are shown as tracked changes. You can compare the different versions of an agreement document within the same contract record. You can also compare different versions of a contract document within the same agreement record generated using different templates.
Merge: Merging documents uses Word's Combine feature to merge selected documents. Merging documents can be advantageous if you have one version of the document that has been redlined, and a regenerated version in the latest format (dynamically inserted fields, new clauses, etc.). The original (pre-merged) documents are not changed. Merging the documents displays a new third document, named Merge Result. At this point, you can accept and reject any of the redlined elements in the combined document and check-in the document as a new version.
Compare Versus Merge
When you compare two document versions, the revised document version is considered as a baseline for tracking changes. When you merge two document versions with changes to the same content, the edits of both the original and revised content is displayed.
To compare different versions of an agreement document
To merge different versions of an agreement document
Behavior and Limitation
- When you compare and merge documents, the original document takes precedence as it contains comments. The comments are retained in the merged document. This is Microsoft Word's behavior. As a workaround, you can remove comments from the final version of the document.
- If the document contains date type content control, the merge document may lose content control boundary for certain smart fields. This is Microsoft Word's behavior.
- If the protection of the document is ICTC (Insert Comments and Track Changes) but revisions are still not visible, you must enable them in the Trust Center. From the Microsoft Word left menu, go to Options > More > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > and check Make hidden markup visible when opening or saving.
- When working with Microsoft Word version 2007, the revised document takes precedence over the original document.
- When working with Microsoft Word version 2019, the combined document contains changes from both documents. If both documents contain changes in the same place, then the behavior is unpredictable.