- Overview of Comparing Two Documents
- Using Document Compare
- Understanding the Resulting Documents
- Summary
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Using Document Compare
To use document compare, you must open both versions of the document that you want to compare. After you begin the compare process, the document that is active when you initiate the document compare command is designated as the "Newer" document.
Take a look at how to use document compare:
Open both documents. Make sure the newer document is active.
Select File, Utilities, Compare Documents. The active document name is displayed next to the Newer Document indicator.
Select the older version of the document from the Older Document drop-down menu. As a result, you compare the active document to the older version.
Select Summary and Composite Documents. Based on this selection, you generate not only a new composite document, but a summary document as well. You can ignore the summary document after it's generated if you have no use for it.
Click on the Options button. Select Mark Insertions With, Condition Tag: Inserted (see Figure 1). This is the default condition tag that FrameMaker generates.
Figure 1 FrameMaker's Comparison Options window allows you to use the default condition tags or your own.
Select Mark Deletions with Condition Tag: Deleted. If you want to display change bars in the composite document, select Mark Changes with Change Bar. To quickly jump from a revision list item in the summary document to its corresponding source in the composite, newer, or older documents, click Create Hypertext Links in Summary.
NOTE
You can also type a custom condition tag name in the Comparison Options window. The custom condition tag name does not have to exist in either document being compared. FrameMaker adds the custom condition tag to the composite document and assigns the default condition indicators (Insertions: underline, green; deletions: strikethrough, red).
Click on Set. You are returned to the Compare Documents window. Click on Compare, and let FrameMaker do its magic.
){kind=link}
After you finish, composite and summary documents are created. The composite document is the same name as the designated "newer" document with a CMP suffix. For example, if the "newer" is named filename.fm, then the composite document is named filenameCMP.fm.