Compare two versions of a text
Updated October 29, 2026
"We only changed a comma": the sentence that costs hours. Reading two versions side by side misses things; a diff shows every addition and deletion highlighted, nothing else.
The compare text tool does it in the browser for any text: a contract clause, an article, a configuration file, a translation.
Line, word or character
Lines for code, lists and anything with one item per line: a changed line shows as removed plus added. Words for prose: only the changed words light up inside an unchanged sentence. Characters for small edits (a digit in an amount, a typo), where even a word-level diff would mark the whole word.
Getting the text out of a document
From Word, select all and paste; formatting is dropped, which is what you want. From a PDF, select the text and paste, or run the file through the OCR tool if it is a scan. Compare clause by clause for long contracts: the summary line (+added, −removed) tells you at a glance whether a section changed at all.
Counts and reading time
The word counter next door gives words, characters with and without spaces, sentences and an estimated reading time, in any language, as you type. Useful for limits (a 150-word abstract, a 280-character post) and for checking that a translation did not silently drop a paragraph.
Tips
- Paste the older version on the left: green then means "new".
- Diff by words first; switch to characters only where a word is flagged.
- Nothing is sent or saved; close the tab and the texts are gone.
Questions
- Can it compare two PDF files directly?
- Not as files. Paste the text of each; for scans, extract it with OCR first.
- Is there a size limit?
- 100,000 characters per side, about 50 pages, so the comparison stays instant.
- Does it ignore whitespace?
- Word mode treats spacing changes as changes; use line mode if you only care about content lines.