I still had to accept the formatting changes for the tables and the cross-reference field changes, but that was all. This time it worked!įor this 250p document, the comparison took very little time (maybe a minute or so) and I got a document that showed all the changes I’d selected to report in the new document. In such a case, removing and reinstalling Microsoft Office can resolve the ‘Excel is not responding’ problem.
This reduced the file size considerably (a side bonus). Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEYCURRENTUSERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice14. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK. My compare was against very large MS Word tables. To eliminate that as the reason for the error, I saved it as a *.docx document. Surprised I was able to edit the registry, as it was a work computer where everything was locked down. Document A (the original version) had been created in Word 2003 and so was a *.doc document.After a minute or two of processing, I got the same error that my colleague got.I browsed to the two documents, left all the settings as they were, then clicked OK.To compare two documents, go to the Review tab, Compare group, click the Compare button, then select the Compare… option.
(Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the. WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. You will then be able to perform the replace anew, with Word in a 'fresh' condition. I first tried to compare the two documents without making any changes to them and keeping all the default settings for the comparison. If these factors are set properly and it still doesnt work properly, then you should exit Word and restart the program.
She asked me for help, and then I discovered the value and the speed of the ‘compare’ function.īut first, I got the same error as her (“Word was unable to compare the documents”) when I tried to compare these documents on my computer, thus eliminating her PC as the problem, but once I’d changed some settings, everything worked superbly. However, a work colleague uses Word’s compare function quite often and was having trouble when comparing two versions of the same document. There are some things I rarely use (such as mail merge), so I’m not familiar with how they work, and then there are other things I just didn’t even realize were in Word - like ‘compare documents’ - because I’ve never had any need to use those features. I’ve been working with Word for a couple of decades (!) now, but still it surprises me with what it can do.