TextCompareLab
Guide: Compare edited text
How to see what changed in an edited text
Editors, coauthors and rewriting tools return text that looks similar to yours. Comparing the two versions shows which sentences were rewritten, which were removed and what was added, so you can accept the good edits and catch the ones that changed your meaning.
Steps
- Paste your version in the original box and the edited version in the changed box.
- Turn on "Ignore whitespace" if the edited copy has different spacing or line indents. Turn on "Ignore case" only if capitalisation changes are not what you are checking.
- Run the comparison. Green lines were added, red lines were removed, and in a changed line the words that differ are marked.
- Switch to the unified view when you want one column that reads top to bottom, and to side by side when you want to read the old and new wording together.
Example
This approach always reduces costs for small teams.
This approach can reduce costs for some small teams.
Here the edit is small but it changes the claim. Finding this by rereading two full pages is slow; in the comparison it is one marked line.
Tips for prose
- Comparison works on lines. A text with one long paragraph per line gives the clearest result. If your editor wraps lines at a fixed width, join them into paragraphs first.
- If an edit moved a paragraph, it shows as one removal and one addition. That is expected, since the tool compares text, not intent.
- For a long document, compare it in sections, such as one chapter at a time, so the changes stay readable.
Keep it
Download the result as comparison.txt to keep a record of what changed, or use the Share button to send an encrypted link and send the password separately. Everything runs in your browser. The texts are not uploaded to the site.