WD2002: You Receive Unexpected Results When You Merge Several Revisions of the Same Document (328758)

SYMPTOMS

If you have a document that has the following criteria

The original document was sent to many different authors.

-and-
The different authors made similar or extensive revisions to the same text in the document.

and you try to merge each revised document one by one with the original document by using non-sequential or parallel reviewing, the results are unpredictable, and the revision markings may be incorrect.

CAUSE

This is a known limitation of the new comparison engine in Word 2002. The Compare and Merge tool does not work as expected when you compare changes in a document from multiple users by using non-sequential or parallel reviewing.

Additional text that is not part of any of the revisions should not be added or deleted when you accept the changes to the document. However, too many revision marks in a confined block of text can cause all of the revisions to cancel each other out, and it appears as though no changes have been made in that block of text.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, use one of the two following methods when you compare changes in a document from multiple users by using non-sequential or parallel reviewing.

Method 1: Sequential Review

You can merge the changes from one single revised document that was sequentially edited by each reviewing author, one by one. To do this, follow these steps:

Send a copy of the original document to the first reviewing author for revision.
When the first author has completed making revisions, he or she will send that same document to a second reviewing author.
Step 2 is repeated until all the reviewing authors have revised the document.
Compare the original document to the document that was revised by all the reviewing authors. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Open the original document in Word 2002.
2. On the Tools menu, click Compare and Merge.
3. Locate and then select the revised document, and then click Merge.

Method 2: Non-Sequential Sectioned Review

You can assign different sections of the document to different reviewing authors. This way, their individual changes are limited to a specific location of the document. To do this, follow these steps:

Follow these steps to send a copy of the original document to several reviewing authors at the same time:
1. Assign one section of the document to author #1 for review.
2. Assign a separate section of the document to author #2 for review.
3. Continue assigning different sections of the document until all the authors have their own unique section of the document to review.
After you have received all the revised sections of the document from the reviewing authors, merge them with the original document. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Open the original document in Word 2002.
2. On the Tools menu, click Compare and Merge.
3. Locate and then select the revised document, and then click Merge.
4. Repeat steps b and c until all the revised documents have been merged.

Note This method may still create unexpected results, if it is not applied exactly as it is described in the previous steps.