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. Ten languages are available, including Croatian since version 4.1.73.
• 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 comparison PDF

It is intended for reading and forwarding. The text appears in the layout of the original, the changes are shown in colour, vertical change bars in the margin mark every changed line, and comments from the Word versions stand as readable margin notes beside their passage, with author, status and wording. 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, including both compared files with their SHA-256 checksum, the number of changes by type and then each individual deviation by type, old and new wording and paragraph number. It is intended as the working basis for the review and can be passed on unchanged.

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.

4.5 Checksums and comparison certificate

In the particulars of the review, every output names both compared files with their SHA-256 checksum. A file name does not prove which version was compared; the checksum does. In addition, every comparison produces a signed comparison certificate. It resides in the output itself (in Word and Excel as an embedded data part, in the PDF as a file attachment); the appendix of the output states its identifier. It binds the checksums of both versions, the time, the program version, the settings and the key figures with a signature. The command CompareDesk verify checks it later without a network connection: the signature shows that it is unchanged since issue, and if the two source versions are supplied, their checksums as well. The certificate proves the integrity of the comparison, not the legal assessment of the findings.

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 part of the free version; one run counts as a single comparison, however many pairs or versions it contains.

• 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 produces a single version history as a PDF in which every passage carries a note stating through which version it entered the document and through which it was removed again.
• The proposed pairing is to be checked. It rests on the file names; where files remain unpaired in both folders whose names are at least weakly similar, the wording decides whether they form a pair, and such pairs are marked with both values. The pairing can go wrong; CompareDesk does not relieve you of this 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 by the date in the file name, or failing that by the modification date, and presents the order for confirmation before the run; you can rearrange it. The result is a single PDF, the version history: it shows all versions at once, every insertion and deletion with a note of the version in which it occurred, together with the list of versions with dates and the number of words inserted and deleted per version. You thus read the entire genesis of a clause in one place.

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 comparison 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" creates the version history of a version chain as a PDF. The switch --reihenfolge keeps the given order instead of ordering by date.
• 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 are available from the command line in the free version as well. Every run, whether single comparison, batch or chain, counts as one comparison against the free quota.
• CompareDesk.exe "old.docx" "new.docx" -o "C:\Results" embeds the signed comparison certificate in the output; a separate certificate file is created only where --certificate "C:\Results\Certificate.json" names a path. CompareDesk.exe verify "C:\Results\Comparison.docx" "old.docx" "new.docx" checks it later without a network connection against the two original files.