"Compare Documents" problem -- Never saw this one before.

[PJF]

Ref: TOOLS/TRACK CHANGES/COMPARE DOCUMENTS
WORD 2000 (all updates)
OS Windows 2000 (all updates)

Problem: When comparing two nearly identical documents that are of
approximately the same size and both the same number of pages, the COMPARE
DOCUMENTS works normally until about half way through the document. Then,
suddenly, it shows the second half of the original document as deleted text
and the same second half of the edited document as added text. Yet, both
texts thus affected are nearly identical. I've used this function
successfully many times in the past but never encountered this problem. Any
chance there is some hidden formatting in one or the other documents that
might be the villain here?

Any help or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks and regards,

PJF

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Pjf,

Ref: TOOLS/TRACK CHANGES/COMPARE DOCUMENTS
WORD 2000 (all updates)
OS Windows 2000 (all updates)

Problem: When comparing two nearly identical documents that are of
approximately the same size and both the same number of pages, the COMPARE
DOCUMENTS works normally until about half way through the document. Then,
suddenly, it shows the second half of the original document as deleted text
and the same second half of the edited document as added text. Yet, both
texts thus affected are nearly identical. I've used this function
successfully many times in the past but never encountered this problem. Any
chance there is some hidden formatting in one or the other documents that
might be the villain here?

First thing I'd check is whether ALL tracked changes have been
accepted/rejected in both documents, and make sure the tracking has been
turned off.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[PJF]

Cindy,

A belated note of thanks for your suggestion. I did follow through on it
and determined that both documents were consistent with your suggestions.
The results, however, were the same.

Please accept my thanks, nonetheless, for taking time to reply and making
the effort to help.

Kindest regards,

PJF

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Pjf,

I did follow through on it
and determined that both documents were consistent with your suggestions.
The results, however, were the same.

Then the next thing I'd try would be to save each of these documents to HTML
format, close, re-open and save again as a Word document (to a different
name, of course). If there's damaged file structures causing the problem,
this might correct them.


Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail