How can I find chges to a Word doc w/track changes opt off

[Mrb1025]

I need to find out if there has been changes to a document since creation but
track changes option was either turned off or never set. Is there a work
around ?

 

[Jay Freedman]

I need to find out if there has been changes to a document since
creation but track changes option was either turned off or never set.
Is there a work around ?

If you have the original file, you can use the Tools > Compare and Merge
Documents feature (in Word 2007, Review > Compare) to create a document that
is essentially what Track Changes would have created.

If you don't have an original to compare with, you're out of luck. When
Track Changes has not been used, Word doesn't keep any indication of what
has changed.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Yves Dhondt]

If you have the original file, you can use the Tools > Compare and Merge
Documents feature (in Word 2007, Review > Compare) to create a document
that is essentially what Track Changes would have created.

If you don't have an original to compare with, you're out of luck. When
Track Changes has not been used, Word doesn't keep any indication of what
has changed.

Word does keep some indication of what has changed. It is that very
indication that is used to merge multiple documents.

Basically, whenever you open a Word document (docx) and edit it, Word
generates a "Single Session Revision Save ID" (rsid) and assigns that rsid
to the parts you edit. It is just an indicator of change, it does not know
what the change is. Keeping track of what the exact changes are, is
something "Track Changes" does.

Anyways, the rsid has a few properties:
- it's random (to avoid collisions)
- it's time dependent
- a new rsid should have a value larger than the largest rsid in the
document so far.

This information is used for example when two documents are merged. The
parts having the same rsids are assumed (due to the randomness factor) to
come from the same 'root' document. The other parts (with different, larger
rsids) are the ones that need special attention by the merging process.

So if you have no original document left and are desperate to find out if
your document was changed, you could change the extension from docx to zip,
browse through it and look for a file called "document.xml" in the "word"
folder. Then, in that file, you could look for the largest rsid value. That
will tell you which parts of your file were changed during the last edit
session. That in turn might help you to decide if the document has changed
or not. It is an effort you probably only should do if you are really
desperate, but it might just do the trick for you.

Note that if someone ran the "Document Inspector" on a document, all rsid
information might have been erased.

Yves

 

[Jay Freedman]

Word does keep some indication of what has changed. It is that very
indication that is used to merge multiple documents.

Basically, whenever you open a Word document (docx) and edit it, Word
generates a "Single Session Revision Save ID" (rsid) and assigns that rsid
to the parts you edit. It is just an indicator of change, it does not know
what the change is. Keeping track of what the exact changes are, is
something "Track Changes" does.

Anyways, the rsid has a few properties:
- it's random (to avoid collisions)
- it's time dependent
- a new rsid should have a value larger than the largest rsid in the
document so far.

This information is used for example when two documents are merged. The
parts having the same rsids are assumed (due to the randomness factor) to
come from the same 'root' document. The other parts (with different, larger
rsids) are the ones that need special attention by the merging process.

So if you have no original document left and are desperate to find out if
your document was changed, you could change the extension from docx to zip,
browse through it and look for a file called "document.xml" in the "word"
folder. Then, in that file, you could look for the largest rsid value. That
will tell you which parts of your file were changed during the last edit
session. That in turn might help you to decide if the document has changed
or not. It is an effort you probably only should do if you are really
desperate, but it might just do the trick for you.

Note that if someone ran the "Document Inspector" on a document, all rsid
information might have been erased.

Yves

Thanks, Yves. I was vaguely aware of the rsid, but I didn't think it was of any
use unless there was some previous document to compare to. Also, the original
post didn't say what version of Word was involved.