How to Use Draftable Compare to Spot Changes FasterDraftable Compare is a focused document comparison tool designed to make spotting differences between two files fast and accurate. Whether you’re reviewing contracts, proofreading manuscripts, or checking regulatory updates, Draftable Compare highlights deletions, additions, and formatting changes so you can act quickly and confidently. This guide walks through practical workflows, tips, and features that shave minutes — or hours — off review tasks.
Why choose Draftable Compare
Draftable Compare is built specifically for document comparison, not general editing. That narrow focus yields a few decisive advantages:
- Fast, side-by-side visual comparison of text and layout
- Clear color-coded highlights for added, removed, and changed content
- Support for common file types (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, text)
- Reliable handling of long documents and complex formatting
These strengths make Draftable especially useful when accuracy and speed matter — for legal teams, editors, product managers, and anyone who needs defensible change detection.
Preparing documents for best results
Small preparation steps improve accuracy and speed:
- Convert scanned images to searchable PDFs (OCR) before comparing. Draftable needs selectable text to detect changes accurately.
- Use the original, unredacted files when possible. Redactions or flattened edits can obscure changes.
- Trim extraneous sections (cover pages, appendices) if they’re not relevant to the comparison to reduce noise.
- Ensure both files use the same language settings and character encoding to avoid false positives.
Step-by-step: Basic comparison workflow
- Open Draftable Compare (web or desktop application).
- Upload the “original” document into the left pane and the “revised” document into the right pane.
- Wait a few seconds while Draftable processes and aligns the texts.
- Scan the color-coded highlights: additions, deletions, and modified text.
- Use navigation controls (next/previous change) to move through changes efficiently.
- Export a comparison report (PDF or Word) if you need to share the results or archive them.
Practical tip: When comparing very long documents, jump directly to sections using the table of contents or the change summary (if available) rather than scrolling.
Interpreting Draftable’s highlights
Draftable’s visual cues are designed to be intuitive; here’s how to read them quickly:
- Additions are marked in one color—scan those to see what’s newly inserted.
- Deletions are marked in another color—verify whether removed content should be restored.
- Modified text shows where wording changed; sometimes a single word change can alter legal meaning.
- Formatting-only differences may be shown separately or de-emphasized depending on settings—use this to skip cosmetic edits when reviewing meaning.
Action-oriented approach: First focus on added/removed substantive clauses, then review modified wording, and finally skim formatting differences only if presentation matters.
Advanced features and settings to speed review
- Ignore whitespace and capitalization: Turn on if you only care about meaningful wording changes.
- Filter by change type: Focus on insertions or deletions first.
- Side-by-side synced scrolling: Keeps corresponding sections aligned as you read.
- Change summary/export: Produces a list of changes you can use to brief stakeholders.
- Compare PDFs to Word: Useful when one party submits a PDF and another submits an editable draft.
Example workflow for legal review: enable “ignore formatting” to surface substantive clause changes, export a change summary, and create a redline-ready document for your negotiating team.
Collaborative review tips
- Use exported comparison reports for shared review—attorneys and non-technical stakeholders often prefer a single annotated PDF.
- Combine Draftable with version control: label drafts clearly (e.g., Contract_v3_client.docx vs Contract_v3_redline.docx) to avoid comparing the wrong files.
- When multiple reviewers produce edits, compare each reviewer’s version to a single baseline to track who introduced what change.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
- False negatives from scanned PDFs: Always OCR scanned documents first.
- Comparing incorrect file versions: Confirm file metadata (timestamps, version names) before running comparisons.
- Overlooking formatting impact: Some cosmetic changes can have functional consequences (e.g., bolded warranty terms); scan formatting changes if they affect meaning.
When Draftable Compare isn’t enough
Draftable is excellent for text and simple formatting changes, but consider additional tools or steps when:
- You need semantic analysis (meaning-level comparisons or paraphrase detection).
- Changes are embedded in images, charts, or handwritten notes—use OCR or manual inspection.
- You need automated contract clause extraction or natural-language obligation tracking—combine Draftable output with contract analytics platforms.
Quick checklist to spot changes faster
- Convert scans to searchable PDFs (OCR).
- Use original editable files when possible.
- Turn on filters to ignore formatting when necessary.
- Navigate via change summary, not scrolling.
- Export and share annotated comparison reports.
Closing notes
Using Draftable Compare effectively is mostly about preparing good inputs, focusing on substantive changes first, and leveraging filters and exports to speed collaborative review. With these habits you’ll reduce review time and increase confidence that no important change slipped through.