Comparing versions side-by-side

When you run a differential review — either Tracked changes or Compare with another version — the resulting review carries a server-computed paragraph- and word-level diff between the two documents. The side-by-side comparison panel is how you read it.

Opening the comparison

From any differential review:

• Findings show the relevant change inline beneath them — you can read the diff for that one clause without opening anything else.
• Click Show all differences on a finding (or the panel header) to open the full comparison view. This is the surface for working through every change in the document, not just the ones the AI flagged.

Side-by-side vs Inline

The top-right of the panel has a toggle: Side-by-side or Inline.

Side-by-side

Two columns. Left shows the previous version’s text with deletions highlighted. Right shows the new version’s text with insertions highlighted. Common text (unchanged) appears on both sides at the same vertical position.

This is the right view when:

• You want to read both versions as continuous text and see exactly where they diverge.
• You’re comparing structurally similar clauses where the change matters less than the surrounding context.
• The change is a substitution rather than a pure add/delete — seeing both sides at once makes it instantly readable.

Inline

A single column showing both sides interleaved: deletions struck through in red, additions underlined in green, unchanged text in normal colour — the Word-style tracked-changes look most lawyers already know.

This is the right view when:

• You want a tighter visual that fits in less screen space.
• You’re scanning many changes quickly looking for ones that matter.
• You’re going to copy/paste a passage into an email or comment with the changes visible.

The two views show the same diff — switching between them doesn’t recompute anything, so you can flip back and forth without losing your scroll position.

Word-level precision

The diff isn’t paragraph-level “this whole para changed” — it’s word-level. Within a modified paragraph, you’ll see exactly which words were added, removed, or kept. A 50-word paragraph where the counterparty changed three words shows those three words highlighted, with the other 47 in the normal text colour.

This matters for review quality: a paragraph-level diff would force you to re-read the whole paragraph to find the change. Word-level lets you read just the highlights and understand the substantive shift.

Finding ⇄ change navigation

Every modified hunk in the comparison has a stable hunkId. Every finding the AI raises against a differential review carries a list of which hunks it’s about. This gives you two-way navigation:

• Click a finding → the panel scrolls to the change being discussed. Useful when you’re working through findings sequentially and want to see what the AI is actually responding to.
• Click a change in the panel → the matching findings filter to that change. Useful when you spot a change that looks interesting and want to know what the AI thought about it.

For changes the AI didn’t flag (because they’re cosmetic, or trivially compliant with your playbook), you’ll see the change in the panel with no associated finding. That’s fine — not every change deserves a finding, and the absence of one tells you the AI didn’t think it was material.

Sources

When a comparison is between two versions of the same contract, the panel header reads “Comparing v3 → v4” (or whichever versions). When it’s between different contracts or against an attachment, the header reads the source labels directly.

Both source documents are stored on the review record as comparisonSources so the diff is reproducible — opening the same review six months later still shows the same comparison, even if either source document is subsequently revised.

Limitations

• Diff fidelity depends on the source format. DOCX → DOCX comparisons are precise; the structure of the document is preserved end-to-end. PDF sources are OCR-extracted first, so a PDF with poor scan quality may produce false-positive “changes” that are really OCR differences.
• Whitespace-only changes are filtered. If the only difference is leading whitespace or paragraph spacing, the hunk is shown as unchanged. This sounds aggressive but it matches practical review intent — nobody wants 200 findings for “the counterparty re-indented the document”.
• Some formatting differences are invisible. The comparison focuses on textual content. Font / colour / italics changes don’t show up because they almost never matter for legal review. If you need a true visual diff for formatting, export the DOCX and use Word’s Compare Documents.

See also

• Review scopes — whole document, tracked changes, version comparison
• Multi-document reviews
• Generating redlines
• Understanding finding verdicts