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From: ent on 14 Mar 2010 19:24

Hi all


I need to compare two Word documents using some Word feature, tool,
plugin or separate utility that tells me *how much* two documents differ
one from the other.

Example:

The text in document A is 25% different from the text in document B.



Does such tool exist?


thanks
From: Stefan Blom on 15 Mar 2010 10:20
As far as I know, what you are trying to do isn't possible in Word.

What Word can do is compare documents and create a combined version with
Track Changes.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP



<ent(a)ent.ent> wrote in message news:O7Z63VExKHA.5036(a)TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>
> Hi all
>
>
> I need to compare two Word documents using some Word feature, tool, plugin
> or separate utility that tells me *how much* two documents differ one from
> the other.
>
> Example:
>
> The text in document A is 25% different from the text in document B.
>
>
>
> Does such tool exist?
>
>
> thanks



From: ent on 15 Mar 2010 10:46
Stefan Blom wrote:
> As far as I know, what you are trying to do isn't possible in Word.
>
> What Word can do is compare documents and create a combined version with
> Track Changes.
>


Is there a way to know how many words are changed between two similar
documents? Something like "X words were changed between docA and docB" ?

thanks
From: Yves Dhondt on 15 Mar 2010 14:51
How would you describe the change of words?

"I'm considered a good cook."
vs
"I want to cook something good."

'good' and 'cook' appear in both sentences, yet their meaning is totally
different ('cook' appears as a noun and as a verb for example).

If you consider those words the same in the above sentences, you could write
a macro which just keeps track of each word in your document and the number
of times it occurs. Given that list, you could then count the number of
times each word occurs in the other document and see how much change there
is. But if you ask me, the resulting value wouldn't be expressing anything
useful.

Yves

<ent(a)ent.ent> wrote in message news:eoT0UHFxKHA.404(a)TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Stefan Blom wrote:
>> As far as I know, what you are trying to do isn't possible in Word.
>>
>> What Word can do is compare documents and create a combined version with
>> Track Changes.
>>
>
>
> Is there a way to know how many words are changed between two similar
> documents? Something like "X words were changed between docA and docB" ?
>
> thanks

From: ent on 15 Mar 2010 15:01
Yves Dhondt wrote:
> How would you describe the change of words?
>
> "I'm considered a good cook."
> vs
> "I want to cook something good."
>
> 'good' and 'cook' appear in both sentences, yet their meaning is totally
> different ('cook' appears as a noun and as a verb for example).
>
> If you consider those words the same in the above sentences, you could
> write a macro which just keeps track of each word in your document and
> the number of times it occurs. Given that list, you could then count the
> number of times each word occurs in the other document and see how much
> change there is. But if you ask me, the resulting value wouldn't be
> expressing anything useful.
>
> Yves


I agree with you, but in my case semantics is not a concern.

I have a very simple need.

I am dealing with very formalised and repetitive documents and all I
need is just something that does this:

Given the capability that Word 2007 already has, of comparing two
documents an show what lines/words are different in the two docs, I need
to simply be able to *count* how many words are different in the second
documents.

Can I do that, perhaps selecting somehow the "different" word in the
second doc and the counting them?


How can I select or capture the words that are different?

thanks

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