How To: Merge Changes From Multiple Word Documents

Many copyeditors choose Microsoft Word to create documents because of the popularity of the program, as well as how easy it is to send to others without having issues viewing the document. Microsoft Word has many limitations as far as graphic creativity, but it is great for straight documentation. The main benefit of Microsoft Word is the ability to turn on the “track changes” feature and track every deletion, addition, or add comments throughout the document without changing it.

After emailing your document to multiple reviewers, Word has the ability to merge comments from each of the documents into one master copy. This gives the ability to view every reviewer’s copy and see what sections had the most revisions suggestions.

Merge Documents

1.)    Click on the Review tab, then click Compare.

2.)    Under Original document, click the name of the document into which you want to combine the changes from multiple sources.

3.)    Under Revised document, browse for the document that contains the changes by one of the reviewers.

4.)    Click More.

5.)    Under Show changes, select the options for what you want to compare in the documents.

By default, Microsoft Office Word shows changes to whole words. For example, if you change the word cat to cats, the entire word cats will show as changed in the document and not simply the characters.

6.)    Under Show changes in, click Original document.

7.)    Click OK.

To change which documents appear on the screen when you click OK, in the Compare group, click Hide Source Documents or Show Source Documents.

8.)    Repeat steps 1-8. Word will merge all of the changes into the original document.

Be sure to save your new version and rename it so there is no confusion between the different versions and the master copy.

Resources

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/merge-comments-and-changes-from-several-documents-into-1-document-HP001221654.aspx