Compare Documents

Сompare documents and track changes like insertions, deletions, and modifications using C#.

Supported Modules and Document Formats

Use the Wordize Comparison for .NET module to work with features.

Select any document conversion module to work with the required formats.

Wordize provides an easy and efficient way to compare two documents and highlight their differences. This feature helps track changes between document versions, whether for collaboration, version control, or content auditing.

With the Wordize Comparison for .NET, you can programmatically compare two documents and generate a document with the detected changes. The comparison results include insertions, deletions, and modifications, making it easy to review document differences.

How to Compare Documents

When comparing documents, differences between the second and first documents are displayed as revisions in the first document – each detected change will have its revision.

The comparison functionality in Wordize is accessible through the Comparer class, which provides the Compare methods for comparing documents.

Note

If you want to compare two documents, you will need Wordize Comparison for .NET and the mandatory Wordize Core for .NET module with corresponding licenses:

The mandatory Wordize Core for .NET module allows users to load and save documents in Microsoft Word format. Without purchasing this module, none of the other modules will work.
The Wordize Comparison for .NET module provides the functionality to compare documents.

If you want to compare documents in other formats, you need additional modules. For example, to compare two HTML documents, you also need the additional Wordize Web for .NET module.

Compare DOCX Files

Note

You can also compare documents in any format. Here, we take DOCX comparison as an example.

As mentioned above, to compare documents in DOCX format, you will need the Wordize Core for .NET and Wordize Comparison for .NET modules.

The following code examples show how to compare two documents using the Compare methods:

method Compare(string, string, string, string, DateTime)

string firstDoc = "Document1.docx";
string secondDoc = "Document2.doc";

Comparer.Compare(firstDoc, secondDoc, "CompareDocuments.1.docx", "Author", new DateTime());

method Compare(string, string, string, SaveFormat, string, DateTime)

string firstDoc = "Document1.docx";
string secondDoc = "Document2.doc";

Comparer.Compare(firstDoc, secondDoc, "CompareDocuments.2.docx", SaveFormat.Docx, "Author", new DateTime());

method Compare(Stream, Stream, Stream, SaveFormat, string, DateTime)

using var firstStreamIn = File.OpenRead("Document1.docx");
using var secondStreamIn = File.OpenRead("Document2.docx");
using var streamOut = File.Create("CompareStreamDocuments.1.docx");

Comparer.Compare(firstStreamIn, secondStreamIn, streamOut, SaveFormat.Docx, "Author", new DateTime());

Compare Documents Using Comparison Options

For a more precise comparison, you can also use CompareOptions:

CompareMoves – specifies whether to compare the differences between two documents and present the differences as a move revision, defaults to “false”
IgnoreCaseChanges – specifies no case sensitivity, defaults to “true”
IgnoreTables – specifies whether to ignore data in tables when comparing, defaults to “false”
IgnoreFields – specifies whether to ignore data in fields when comparing, defaults to “false”.
IgnoreFootnotes – specifies whether to ignore data in footnotes and endnotes when comparing, defaults to “false”.
IgnoreComments – specifies whether to ignore data in comments when comparing, defaults to “false”.
IgnoreTextboxes – specifies whether to ignore data in text boxes when comparing, defaults to “false”.
IgnoreFormatting – specifies whether to ignore formatting when comparing, defaults to “false”.
IgnoreHeadersAndFooters – specifies whether to ignore data in headers and footers when comparing, defaults to “false”.
Granularity – specifies whether changes are tracked by characters or by words, defaults to “WordLevel”

The following code examples show how to compare documents, specifying comparison options and using one of the Compare methods:

method Compare(string, string, string, string, DateTime, CompareOptions)

string firstDoc = "Document1.docx";
string secondDoc = "Document2.doc";

CompareOptions compareOptions = new CompareOptions();
compareOptions.IgnoreCaseChanges =true;

Comparer.Compare(firstDoc, secondDoc, "CompareDocuments.3.docx", "Author", new DateTime(), compareOptions);

method Compare(string, string, string, SaveFormat, string, DateTime, CompareOptions)

string firstDoc = "Document1.docx";
string secondDoc = "Document2.doc";

CompareOptions compareOptions = new CompareOptions();
compareOptions.IgnoreCaseChanges =true;

Comparer.Compare(firstDoc, secondDoc, "CompareDocuments.4.docx", SaveFormat.Docx, "Author", new DateTime(), compareOptions);

method Compare(Stream, Stream, Stream, SaveFormat, string, DateTime, CompareOptions)

using var firstStreamIn = File.OpenRead("Document1.docx");
using var secondStreamIn = File.OpenRead("Document2.docx");
using var streamOut = File.Create("CompareStreamDocuments.2.docx");

CompareOptions compareOptions = new CompareOptions();
compareOptions.IgnoreCaseChanges = true;

Comparer.Compare(firstStreamIn, secondStreamIn, streamOut, SaveFormat.Docx, "Author", new DateTime(), compareOptions);