Failed to compare documents

Resolution

Resolution 1
When the error is occurring on only one set of documents

Please run the comparison twice with your documents. One in Standard mode and another comparison in Fast mode (highlighted in red) to verify when the issue occurs.

comparison standard and fast mode

If the issue persists, run the comparison with Workshare’s sample documents which you can find in the following paths:

For 32 bit Windows OS:

C:\Program Files\Workshare\Modules\Sample Original Document.doc

C:\Program Files\Workshare\Modules\Sample Modified Document.doc

For 64 bit Windows OS:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Workshare\Modules\Sample Original Document.doc

C:\Program Files (x86)\Workshare\Modules\Sample Modified Document.doc

If the issue occurs with our sample documents, there is no need to troubleshoot any further. Please send an email to support@workshare.com explaining the steps you have taken and we will continue with further troubleshooting.

Your environment details are also required for us to reproduce the issue in house. Please see the following links below for instruction on how to retrieve this information:

Office version:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-version-of-Office-am-I-using-932788b8-a3ce-44bf-bb09-e334518b8b19

Windows version:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/which-operating-system

Workshare version:

http://workshare.force.com/knowledgebase/articles/Help_Articles/How-do-I-find-my-product-version-and-build-number

If the issue does not occur with our sample documents, you can determine which one of your documents is the faulty document. The best way is to compare document 1 with itself and document 2 with itself by following the steps below:

Open Workshare Compare.
Select document 1 in the Original document field.
Select document 1 again in the Modified document field.
Click OK to compare the documents.

If you were able to successfully compare document 1 to itself, follow the same steps above with document number 2 to verify if this is the faulty document. If comparing the document to itself returns the error, it is likely to be a document corruption issue.

Why does a document get corrupted?

A document gets corrupted when there are one or more pieces of information creating a wrong behavior in the document, hence Compare is unable to correctly interpret the data.

Here are a few steps to resolve the issue:

Go to the Windows start menu and search for the Workshare Configuration Assistant. Test the issue once more after doing this. If error persist follow step 2.
Repair the document in Word. If you require help, please visit this link for further instructions on how to repair a corrupted document: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/893672
Try running the comparison once more using a different set of documents.
Copy the document content into a new Word document and save it as new document.
Save both documents in the same format (.doc/.doc, .docx/.docx, etc) and run the comparison again.

If you did not create the documents and the approaches above do not resolve the issue, please contact the sender of the documents and request a new copy of the documents so you can try the steps again.

Resolution 2
When the issue is occurring on more than one set of documents

As we've established that this error is occurring with multiple documents, please make sure you've tested the issue on at least two sets of documents:

First, run a comparison on Standard mode and then a comparison on Fast mode with one set of documents triggering the error message.
Once finished, run another comparison on Standard mode and then another comparison on Fast mode using the second set of documents triggering the error message.

Now, continue with the steps below:

Go to the Windows start menu and search for the Workshare Configuration Assistant. Test the issue once more after doing this. If error persist follow step 2.
Run Office Repair. If you require help, please visit the link below for further instruction on how to execute Office Repair: https://support.office.com/en-US/Article/Repair-an-Office-application-7821d4b6-7c1d-4205-aa0e-a6b40c5bb88b
Check if the issue occurs when the document is saved on .doc format or .docx format (the two file types exhibit different behaviors). If you are using Compare 9 this is automatically enabled. If you are using Compare 8 or previous versions you can enable this option in the Workshare Configuration Manager. You can access this by pressing F4 within the Compare program:
- On the left panel you will see the Comparison tab > Administration
- Select Enable fast comparison for DOCX files
- Click Apply (top left hand corner)
If the issue is occurring with PDF documents, please send an email to support@workshare.com and we'll help you troubleshoot this further.

If the resolutions above have been tried and you are still unable to compare your documents successfully, please send 3 sets of documents showing this behavior to support@workshare.com. Please be aware that in order to troubleshoot your issue properly, we require these 3 sets of documents to be different and not just copied.

Your environment details are also required for us to reproduce the issue in house. Please see the following links below to retrieve this information: