Compare Word Documents using Python

Compare Word documents using Python by following the details compiled in this quick tutorial. It contains the information to configure the environment, the step-by-step algorithm, and a runnable code sample to compare two docs using Python. Moreover, you do not need to install MS Word to compare Word documents programmatically.

Steps to Compare Word Documents in Python

  1. Configure the environment to use Aspose.Words for Python via .NET to compare Word documents using Python
  2. Get the first input Word document using an object of the Document class
  3. Get the second Word document to perform the comparison
  4. Accept all of the revisions to include the latest changes for the input documents
  5. Compare the input Word documents by invoking the Compare method
  6. Export the compared output Word document highlighting the changes using the Save method

These steps outline the program flow to compare 2 documents in Word using Python. The comparison starts by loading the input Word documents, followed by including all the changes by accepting the revisions in order to track all the differences. Finally, export the comparison result that tracks all the changes by the authors of the documents.

Code to Compare Word Documents using Python

The code snippet is sufficient to compare two documents for similarities using Python. The class Document plays a role in the comparison as the source documents are loaded, and the revisions are accepted with the accept_all_revisions() method. Subsequently, invoke the compare() method that creates the comparison result and save it as an output Word document.

This quick guide has covered all the details to compare 2 Word documents for differences using Python. To learn the conversion of Word documents to PCL format, refer to the article on Convert Word to PCL using Python.

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