Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!usfvax2!pollock
From: pollock@usfvax2.EDU (Wayne Pollock)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Diff marks on Mac documents
Summary: maybe yes, maybe no...
Message-ID: <1239@usfvax2.EDU>
Date: 13 Feb 89 22:12:36 GMT
References: <578@iex.UUCP>
Reply-To: pollock@usfvax2.UUCP (Wayne Pollock)
Organization: University of South Florida at Tampa
Lines: 28

In article <578@iex.UUCP> cramer@iex.UUCP (Bill Cramer) writes:
>We have recently converted our technical documentation platform from 
>Unix (vi/nroff) to the Mac (Word/Canvas).  In the course of preparing 
>most documents, we go through a write->review->change cycle.  On Unix 
>we made use of a filter called 'diffmk' which compared two documents 
>and added change marks as it created a third version. (Change marks 
>are the vertical bars which indicate lines where the two documents 
>differ.)
>
>Is there such a beast available for the Mac?  

The problem is that nroff is a text document; if I remember correctly
diffmk was a shell script that compaired the text line by line and added
some nroff stuff to print the vertical bar whenever it detected a difference.

To get diff marks in a Word document, try saving the document in RTF or
some other pure text format.  Use diff (there is at least one for the Mac)
to find the changes, and come up with something to add the vertical bars.
Perhaps a phone call or letter to Microsoft will help.  At the very least
you can use this method to find the differences and add the change mark
manually.  Or you can download the two text version of your document and
use the unix system to add the marks.

If you get this solved automatically please le me know how you did it!

Wayne Pollock (The MAD Scientist)	pollock@usfvax2.usf.edu
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