Compare versions of a research paper or thesis

The paper comes back from the journal with reviews, you revise it, your co-authors edit it, and when it's time to write the response letter you need to know exactly what changed since the submitted version. In Verso, you drop both versions and read the differences side by side, section by section.

When to compare

• Before the response to reviewers, to list every change and where it is.
• When a co-author sends the file back without tracked changes.
• When your thesis or dissertation comes back from your advisor.
• When the journal's proof arrives as a PDF, to check nothing changed beyond what you approved.

Section by section

If the text uses the Heading 1 style in Word or LibreOffice for its sections (Introduction, Methods, Results), Verso splits the comparison into them and shows how many changes each one has. Sections that didn't change stay hidden. A paragraph that changed position shows as moved.

Formats

Word (.docx), LibreOffice (.odt), PDF, plain text (.txt) and Markdown (.md), in any combination. Writing in LaTeX? Compare the PDFs LaTeX produces, keeping in mind that a PDF comparison is a reconstruction of the text, or save a copy of each .tex with the .txt extension: the commands then come in as text, and the comparison is exact. The PDF details are in compare PDFs.

What Verso doesn't do

Many journals ask for a copy with the changes marked, along with the revised version. Verso shows the changes on screen, for you to read and check; it doesn't produce that marked-up file. For that, use Word's Compare, as the guide on how to compare two documents in Word shows.

Unpublished research stays on your computer

The text is read and compared in the browser and isn't uploaded to any server. Results that aren't published yet stay with you.