CompareDesk step by step

2. Installation and first start

CompareDesk is delivered as a package and is set up in moments. From the Microsoft Store the Install button is all it takes. If you obtain the program from our website, download the file CompareDesk.appinstaller and open it with a double click; the Windows App Installer states the publisher and the version and installs the signed package. Neither a separate setup program nor administrator rights are required.

• On first start you choose the interface language. Nine languages are available.
• The free edition allows 25 full comparisons. After that, entering a licence key is enough; no reinstallation is required.
• Windows 10 from version 1809 or Windows 11 in the 64-bit edition is required. Word and Excel need not be present on the computer.
• Windows installs new versions automatically, whether you obtained the program from the Store or from our website.
• Checking by hand: at the foot of the window sits the button “Check for updates now”. In the package edition it leads to installation via the App Installer, in the stand-alone edition to the setup program. Your activation is retained in either case.

4. Reading the result

The colour scheme is the same in all outputs, so you only need to learn it once.

• Blue underlined means inserted, red struck through means deleted.
• Green marks a move: the same wording appears at a different place.
• In the Word file these are genuine tracked changes. You can accept or reject each one individually.
• A change of the outline number is reported as such and not as a text change, so a mere shift in numbering does not appear as a change of substance.
• A change of formatting, such as bold or italics, forms its own category and does not mix with the text changes.
• The report states at the beginning the number of changes per category and the degree of correspondence. The degree is an indication, not a judgment on materiality.
• Related deviations within one sentence are bundled into a single finding. You read the change in its sentence context rather than as a series of isolated word fragments.

4.1 The Word file with tracked changes

These are genuine Word revisions, not merely coloured text. You can accept or reject each change individually under Review in the ribbon and produce the clean version directly from it.

4.2 The redline PDF

It is intended for reading and forwarding. The text appears in the layout of the original, the changes are marked in colour, and at the end there is a list of all findings with their location.

4.3 The schedule of deviations

Every output ends with a schedule. It states the particulars of the review, the number of changes by type and then each individual deviation by type, former and new wording and paragraph number. It is intended as a working basis for the review and may be passed on unaltered.

4.4 A figure that often raises questions

The degree of correspondence is measured by wording, not by legal significance. A comparison at 99 per cent may contain a single, decisive change. What matters is always the review of the findings, not the figure.

6. Several documents at once

If you place two folders in the fields instead of two files, CompareDesk forms the pairs from the file names and presents them for confirmation. Batch operation and the version chain are reserved to the licensed version; they are not available in the free version.

• A batch run counts as a single comparison for consumption purposes, however many pairs it comprises.
• The version chain orders several versions of a document chronologically and compares them successively, version by version.
• The proposed pairing is to be checked. It rests on the file names and can go wrong; CompareDesk does not relieve you of that check.
• Files without a counterpart are listed separately in the overview. In a data room these are precisely the more important item.

6.1 Batch comparison of two folders

The result consists of an overview table with one row per pair and the individual reports in a subfolder named after the mode and the date of the run. From every row a click leads to the corresponding report.

6.2 Version chain

If you select several versions of the same document at once, CompareDesk orders them chronologically and compares them successively, the first against the second, the second against the third and so on. You thereby read the entire history on one page.

8. The settings

The defaults are chosen for legal use and normally need no change. Among other things you can exclude capitalisation, punctuation and formatting from the comparison and control text recognition and its language.

• Formatting, punctuation and capitalisation can each be excluded from the comparison directly in the window.
• Text recognition can be switched off and its language fixed; by default the language is detected automatically.
• The proposed target folder can be set to the folder of the original version, that of the comparison version, or a fixed folder.
• The author of the changes can be set freely; it appears in the Word file as the originator of the revisions.
• The scope of the summary can be chosen between a brief presentation and a detailed finding.
• The Tables button opens three settings for workbooks: the decimal place to which figures are rounded before the comparison, the columns to be excluded, and the column by which rows are matched to one another.

10. Invocation from the command line

For integration into your own processes CompareDesk can be invoked directly from the command line. Note that CompareDesk is a windowed program without a console of its own: the invocation displays no output in the command prompt. The result is the file created; for machine-readable evaluation the switch --json-out is provided. A path containing spaces must be enclosed in quotation marks.

• CompareDesk.exe "old.docx" "new.docx" -o "C:\Results" creates a Word file with tracked changes. The switch --pdf additionally creates the redline PDF; --docx --pdf creates both.
• CompareDesk.exe stapel "C:\Old" "C:\New" --ja --out "C:\Results" compares two folders pair by pair. The switch --ja adopts the pairing formed without a query and thereby places the responsibility with you.
• CompareDesk.exe kette "Version 1.docx" "Version 2.docx" "Version 3.docx" --out "C:\Results" compares a version chain consecutively, that is the first version against the second and the second against the third.
• CompareDesk.exe ... --json-out "C:\Results\findings.json" writes the result of an individual comparison to a file in machine-readable form. Further available are --lang for the language of the output, --author for the author of the changes and --ignore-formatting.
• Batch operation and the version chain also require a valid licence on the command line. An individual comparison counts against the quota of the free version.