Compare versions

Compare versions of a document to see highlighted text differences. Additions are highlighted in green, and deletions are highlighted in red.

• How to compare versions
• Version compare tool overview
• Supported file types
• Troubleshooting and limitations

 

 

How to compare versions

1. Open a document in the Viewer. The document should have an uploaded file and more than one version.
2. In the bottom left, select “Compare versions.”
3. In the modal, select which version you would like to compare.
   
   
   1. The first item is always the version that is open in the Viewer. If you would like to select a different version here, navigate to the version in the history menu before selecting “Compare versions.”
   2. By default, the second item will usually be the most recent version that is not open in the Viewer. Click the dropdown to select a different version.
4. Select “Compare.”

The versions you selected will open in the version compare tool, with the more recent version on the right side.

 

Version compare tool overview

Versions and change list

• In the main window are the versions you selected. The older version appears on the left, and the newer version appears on the right. Click an addition or deletion to scroll to it in the change list on the far right.
• From the change list, select one of the listed differences to jump to it on the page. Each card displays the number of words removed and/or added in the top right.

 

Toolbar

1. View options. Open this menu to see the following:
   • Mode: Use this to switch between side-by-side view and single document view.
   • Show/hide change list
   • Enable/disable sync scrolling: This determines whether pages are scrolled together or separately.
2. Search for text in the document
3. Page navigation tools
4. Zoom tools

 

Supported file types

You can only compare documents that have selectable text. This includes:

• Adobe Illustrator (.ai)
• Microsoft Excel (.xlsx)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
• Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
• Portable Document Format (.pdf)

While Pepper Flow supports the upload of files up to 5GB and has no page limit, this feature has a max file size of 100MB per file and a max page limit of 400 pages.

The tool only compares differences in text. It does not compare images within the files.

 

Troubleshooting and limitations

Why can’t I compare a document?

Here are some common reasons you may not be able to compare a document:

• You have not uploaded a file yet. The “Compare versions” button only appears after you have uploaded a file.
• The file you uploaded is not a supported file type.
• The document only has one version (v1.0). The “Compare versions” button only appears after you have multiple versions of a document.
  • Currently, you can only compare different versions of the same document. You cannot compare different documents.

 

Why was something highlighted as a difference?

The version compare tool does its best to map text from one version to another and detect what changed. However, you may see some things highlighted incorrectly as differences in the following scenarios:

• When you have documents with three or more columns or unusual layouts, some text may not be mapped correctly and will instead be marked as removed/re-added. Documents with tables may see similar false positives.
• In a multi-column document, if text moved from the bottom of one column to the top of another, sometimes it’s marked as text that was removed/re-added.

 

Why was something not highlighted as a difference?

One reason why something may not have been highlighted is because the text difference appears within an image, not as selectable text. Currently, the version compare tool does not compare images.

 

Large file sizes

The version compare tool works best with smaller file sizes. If you compare large files, you may see the following behavior:

• The comparison may need a few minutes to load. In particular, after the interface has loaded, the files and their differences may need additional time to load.
  • Do not refresh the page while the comparison is loading. This will result in a 404. If you tried a refresh, close the tab, return to the Viewer, and reselect the versions you would like to compare.
• The scrolling behavior may be slower than usual.

If you would like to know how large a file is (or for files that require a rendition, how large the rendition may be), open the document in the Viewer and check the document properties.

 

Related help topics

• View previous versions of a document
• Review a document