Baseline Files and Their Use

Owned by Jenny Seifert (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Dec 28, 2018

Create New Baseline

eXtyles creates a single baseline backup copy of your original document on activation. Sometimes it may be useful to have more than one baseline version of a document. For example, if a significant number of Cleanup changes are made prior to Auto-Redact, it may be useful to make a second baseline just prior to Auto-Redact. This second baseline will make it easier to view only those changes made by the Auto-Redact function without having to review those changes that resulted from the document Cleanup. By saving multiple baselines in this fashion, you can compare to either the original document or the document as it existed immediately prior to Auto- Redact.

Create New Baseline acts as follows:

  1. It checks for the existence of documents called Document$base.doc and Document$original.doc.
  2. If neither document exists, it will save the new baseline as Document$base.doc If only Document$base.doc exists, it renames this document to be Document$original. doc and saves the new baseline as Document$base.doc.
  3. If both Document$base.doc and Document$original.doc exist, it renames Document$base.doc to Document$base1.doc and then saves as new baseline as Document$base.doc. Subsequent saves will rename Document$base.doc as Document$base2.doc, etc.

If you have two or more baseline versions saved, a dialog will open when you select the Compare to Baseline menu item. This dialog will list all baseline versions that you have saved with the most recent one highlighted at the top of the list. You can select the most recent baseline or any other one to perform a comparison between your document in its current state and the selected baseline.

In this section



Compare to Baseline

To compare the current version of the document being processed by eXtyles with one of the baseline copies:

1. Select eXtyles > Compare to Baseline.

A dialog appears and lists all the baseline versions that have been saved. The date and time appears in parentheses next to each document, for example, Document$base.doc (2/15/12 1:43 PM). The most recent version is highlighted at the top of the list. You can select any of the baseline versions to perform the comparison with your current document.

2. Select the desired document and click Compare.

Warning

Do not make changes in the Baseline Compare document: make all changes in the original file. eXtyles functions are disabled on all baseline compare documents as a safety measure.

Word-Level Comparison versus Character-Level Comparison

In Word 2007 and later, if there are multiple baseline files available, you will have the option to show changes at the word level or the character level. If you choose the word level, a word in which there is a single-character change will appear to have been replaced completely (i.e., if the word “armour” is changed to “armor,” it will appear as if the entire word “armour” has been replaced with “armor” rather than just one letter); if you choose the character level, just the letter “u” will be tracked as a deletion rather than the entire word appearing to have been replaced.

If there is only one baseline file available when you select Compare to Baseline, eXtyles defaults to showing changes at the Word level.

Note

There is no difference in the end result in the Word document! The two options affect only how Word displays changes in comparisons in the Compare to Baseline feature. Either option is a safe choice.

Formatting Changes

In addition to viewing the changes in your Word document at the word level or character level, you can also view all formatting changes made to your document. Formatting changes include modifications to font, paragraph spacing, face markup like bold or italic, and more. To highlight formatting changes in your comparison file, check the box for “Show formatting changes” before clicking Compare on the Compare to Baseline dialog.

Source Document Display Options

You can also change the display of source documents (the documents that are to be compared, such as a working document and a baseline document) in Word by viewing the Review ribbon in Word and clicking Compare toward the right of the ribbon; from the Compare drop-down menu, you can choose Show Source Documents and one of the following settings: Hide Source Documents, Show Original, Show Revised, or Show Both. The default setting in eXtyles Compare to Baseline is Hide Source Documents, which means that by default, you see only the comparison result between the original document and the baseline.

Baseline Compare Issues

In a few instances, the Compare to Baseline compare function signals spurious differences between the initial and cleaned-up texts, as described in the following subsections.

Special Characters

Certain special characters (symbols such as degree, times, similar, less and greater than, plus or minus, etc.) are highlighted as having been changed. The words containing these characters are crossed out in the baseline comparison file and rewritten. There may be no actual difference between the initial and the cleaned font and font size. This means you might see something like the following examples:

Greek Letters

Greek letters (and other characters) are highlighted as having been changed if eXtyles uses the Symbol font to represent them. The words containing these characters are crossed out and rewritten. The cleaned version of the Greek character is exactly the same as the original one:

Fields

If some text in the initial document is represented in a field, eXtyles converts the field to text. Baseline compare signals a difference:

When you review the original text, it appears shaded to indicate that it was a field.

Automatic Numbering

In automatically numbered sections of text, the following differences may appear in the cleaned version:

  • Numbering may be reformatted
  • Numbers may be re-represented.
  • Indentation and tab lengths may be altered.

When numbering is reformatted, you see:

When numbers are re-represented, you see:

Private Fields

eXtyles removes private fields and leaves the notation [REMOVED PRIVATE FIELD] in their place.

Advance Fields

eXtyles removes advance fields and leaves the notation [REMOVED ADVANCE FIELD] in their place.

Added Returns

eXtyles may insert a return before page breaks or after removed table notation, or at the end of a document.