How to Compare Two Word Documents While Excluding Formatting Differences

When you need to compare two Word documents, formatting changes such as different fonts, colors, or spacing often clutter the comparison results. This makes it hard to spot actual content edits. Word includes a built-in feature called Compare that can ignore formatting changes entirely. This article explains how to set up a document comparison that shows only text insertions, deletions, and moves while hiding all formatting differences.

How the Word Compare Feature Works With Formatting

The Compare tool in Word is designed to detect any difference between two versions of a document. By default, it tracks changes in text content, formatting, structure, and metadata. The feature compares character by character and reports every single change as a tracked change in a new document.

When formatting is included, a simple font change from Calibri to Arial generates a separate tracked change for each affected character. If a paragraph has its line spacing adjusted, every line in that paragraph becomes a formatting change. These additions can quickly overwhelm the reviewer, hiding the actual text edits.

To exclude formatting, you must clear the Formatting check box in the Compare settings before running the comparison. This instructs Word to ignore all font, paragraph, style, and layout differences. The resulting comparison will show only insertions, deletions, and moved text. No prerequisites are needed beyond having both documents saved and accessible.

Steps to Compare Two Documents While Excluding Formatting

Follow these steps to run a clean comparison that shows only content changes.

1. Open Word and go to the Review tab
   Launch Word. Click the Review tab on the ribbon. This tab contains all document review tools including Compare.
2. Click the Compare button
   In the Compare group, click the Compare button. From the drop-down menu, select Compare. This opens the Compare Documents dialog box.
3. Select the original and revised documents
   In the Original document field, click the folder icon and browse to the first version of your document. In the Revised document field, select the second version. You can also type the full file path if you know it.
4. Click the More button to expand settings
   In the lower-left corner of the dialog, click the More button. This reveals the Comparison settings section with a list of check boxes.
5. Clear the Formatting check box
   In the Comparison settings list, find the Formatting check box. Click to clear it. All other check boxes such as Insertions and Deletions, Moves, Comments, and Tables should remain checked unless you want to exclude them too.
6. Set Show changes in to New document
   In the Show changes section at the bottom, select the option Show changes in New document. This creates a fresh document that contains the merged comparison results. The original and revised documents remain unchanged.
7. Click OK to run the comparison
   Click the OK button. Word processes the two documents and opens a new document showing all content differences as tracked changes. Formatting differences will not appear.
8. Review the comparison results
   The new document displays the comparison in three panes. The center pane shows the merged document with tracked changes. The left pane lists all revisions. The right pane shows the original and revised documents side by side. You can close the right pane by clicking Review > Compare > Show Source Documents > Hide Source Documents.

Common Issues When Comparing Documents Without Formatting

The Formatting check box is grayed out or unavailable

This happens when the two documents have different file formats such as .doc and .docx. Word may disable the Formatting exclusion if it cannot reliably compare formatting across formats. Save both documents as .docx files before starting the comparison. Use File > Save As and choose Word Document (.docx) for each file.

Comparison still shows formatting changes after clearing the check box

If you see formatting marks like strikethrough on font changes or underline on style changes, you may have run the comparison before clearing the check box. Start a new comparison and verify the Formatting check box is empty. Also check that you are viewing the merged document and not the original or revised source panes.

Text that was moved is shown as a deletion and insertion instead of a move

By default, the Moves check box is checked. If you accidentally cleared it, moved text will appear as a delete in the old location and an insert in the new location. Re-run the comparison and ensure Moves is checked. This setting is independent of the Formatting setting.

Comparison results open in a read-only document

The new document created by Compare is read-only by default. To edit it, click Review > Compare > Show Source Documents > Show Both. Then click File > Save As to save the document with a new name. After saving, you can edit the document normally.

Word Compare Settings: Formatting Excluded vs Included

Item	Formatting Excluded	Formatting Included
Tracked change count	Lower — only content changes	Higher — every font and style change counts
Review clarity	High — easy to see text edits	Low — formatting noise hides text edits
Processing time	Faster — fewer differences to calculate	Slower — more differences to process
Best use case	Comparing drafts for content review	Comparing final versions for layout check
Formatting check box state	Cleared	Checked

You can now compare two Word documents and see only the text changes that matter. Use the Review > Compare feature with the Formatting check box cleared to keep your review focused on content edits. For faster future comparisons, consider saving a macro that runs the comparison with your preferred settings. Press Alt+F8 to open the Macros dialog, then create a macro that calls the CompareDocuments method with the Formatting parameter set to false.