How to compare documents in Google Docs

How to compare documents in Google Docs

You can compare two documents in Google Docs to see their differences. This creates a third Google Doc that shows the differences as suggested edits.

1. Open the first document you want to compare
2. Click Tools, and select Compare documents
3. In the compare documents window that appears, select the second document you want to use in your comparison, and enter a name in the Attribute differences to field. You can even include comments from the second document. Then click Compare.
4. Click Open to create and view the comparison document. Any differences from the second document are tracked in suggestion mode as Google Docs comments and appear in a different font color.

You can't combine two documents but you can review suggested edits in the comparison document to create a combined version.

How to review suggested edits in Google Docs

1. After you follow the steps above, in the comparison document, click Tools and Review suggested edits. 
2. You can accept all suggested edits, review them one by one or preview first before accepting edits. 
• To accept all the suggested edits at once, click Accept All.
• If you want to manually review each suggestion first, click either the up (^) or down caret (v) next to Suggested edits, and the Accept All button will automatically change to Accept. Now you can accept edits one by one. 
• To preview edits first, click the down caret (v) next to Show suggested edits, and then select Preview "Accept All"

Article by Karen Matthes, Extension Learning Technologies, klm@umn.edu