To compare two Word documents, you can use Word’s built‑in tools or a few simple workarounds, depending on whether you want automatic redlines or just a visual side‑by‑side check.

Using Word’s Compare Feature (Best for changes)

This is the fastest way if you have two versions of the same document (for example, “v1” and “v2”).

  1. Open Microsoft Word.
  2. Create or open any document (a blank one is fine).
  1. Go to the Review tab on the ribbon.
  1. Click Compare → choose Compare… (sometimes called “Compare Documents”).
  1. In the dialog:
    • Set Original document to your first file.
 * Set **Revised document** to your second file.

 * Optionally fill in “Label changes with” (e.g., someone’s name) so edits are tagged clearly.
  1. (Optional) Click More >> to fine‑tune what gets compared:
    • Turn formatting on/off if you don’t care about font or style changes.
 * Choose whether changes show at **word** or **character** level for more precision.
  1. Click OK.

Word creates a new combined document that shows:

  • Insertions and deletions marked up in the text (often colored and underlined).
  • A revision (markup) pane listing each change, which you can scroll through.
  • Tools to Accept or Reject individual changes or all changes, then save this as its own file.

This is ideal if you sent a document to someone, both of you edited it, and now you want to see all differences without manual copy‑paste.

View Side by Side (Quick visual check)

If you’d rather visually compare the documents yourself:

  1. Open both Word documents.
  2. In one of them, go to the View tab.
  1. Click View Side by Side in the Window group.

Word arranges the two documents so you can scan them next to each other, which is handy for quick checks but doesn’t automatically track differences.

Comparing text only (Google Docs or plain text tools)

If you don’t need to stay inside Word, there are two common options.

  • Google Docs comparison (if you upload the files and convert them):
    1. Open the first doc in Google Docs.
    2. Go to Tools → Compare documents.
3. Select the second document, set who to attribute differences to, and click **Compare**.

4. Google Docs creates a new document with differences shown as suggested edits and different font colors.
  • Plain‑text diff tools :
    • Paste the text from each document into a web‑based diff tool (for example, tools that highlight inserted/deleted lines and characters).
* These work best when you only care about text, not formatting, tables, or images.

Programmatic or advanced comparisons (optional)

If you are a developer and want to compare Word files in code:

  • Use Word’s comparison APIs (such as CompareDocuments via automation) to generate a comparison document automatically.
  • Or convert documents to text/HTML and run a text diff engine, then render the differences in your own interface.

This approach is mostly relevant for web apps or batch‑processing pipelines where users upload two documents and get a redlined output.

Example workflow

Imagine you have “Contract_v1.docx” and “Contract_v2.docx”:

  • Use Review → Compare → Compare… , set v1 as Original and v2 as Revised, and click OK.
  • Review the highlighted insertions and deletions, accept or reject them as needed, then save the comparison file as “Contract_Combined_Reviewed.docx”.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.