RE: Compare the two document versions and show them in the interface

Mike Schmitt — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 12:13:40 GMT

"compare two documents" does not have a single, straightforward answer in *any* computational environment (even generic Windows) since there are about a thousand different things you could mean by "a document", as well as almost as many different things you could mean by "compare".

Do you just mean a "text diff"? That would only generally be possible with largely-text-based documents; vaguely speaking it might be possible in Appian but difficult without a custom plug-in like the "Word Compare" one you mentioned (which, as you may guess, is only useful for MS Word documents). Even then the results would be nearly impossible to show in an Appian interface without devolving quickly into barely-readable gibberish; when displayed in Word, Word is able to utilize sizing and formatting (etc) to make the results at least semi-comprehensible.