24th January 2002

No, I'm telling you - it doesn't look like you've edited my term paper. "Yes, I did." Can you prove it? "Well, I forgot to turn on the Track Changes feature. That's found in the Tools menu." I know where it's located, but it doesn't help me at all now that you've completed the changes. Now, I have to manually compare the two documents side-by-side, and that's going to take hours. Or will it? Not on your life, buddy. Word has a "comparison" feature hidden away within the deep recesses of its structure. Right-click on a toolbar, select Customize, flip to the Commands tab, select the Tools category, then scroll through the right-most pane until you see the "Compare Documents..." option. Drag and drop that bad boy somewhere (either in an existing toolbar or a menu). Now, open your original document, press the newly-created icon, browse for the newer document, and guess what Word will do? Automatically highlight the changes in red. Perfect for when you need to know what once was sitting inside those paragraphs. If your teacher was looking for a rough draft, now you can show him or her in style.