About Comparing Web Pages

As you edit web pages on your Web site, there may be times when you want to see what changed on a particular page, before and after you (or someone else) edited the page. You may want to know, for example, how much text was removed, how much text was added, and where most of the edits took place.

You can do this using Contributor's compare feature, which you can access from the main Contributor editor window (see Contribution Toolbar) or through the contribution graphic in contribution mode (see Contribution Mode).

Depending on where you access the feature, you will see different results:

When opening from the main Contributor editor window, you compare two versions of a contributor data file associated with a contribution region on the web page. You are comparing the version of the file stored in memory with the latest version checked into the content server. (In other words, you see the differences between the saved and unsaved version of the data file.)
When opening from the contribution graphic, you compare two versions of a complete web page, which may comprise multiple contributor data files, native documents, page templates, and more. Furthermore, you see the differences between the most current version of the page and the latest released version of the page. (In other words, you see the difference between the web page viewed normally and the web page viewed in contribution mode.)

Generally, you only see the differences between the current version of a file and the latest released version of the file if the release date has been deliberately set to a future time by the site administrator. Or, if you are using Content Server's workflow features and the item has not been approved yet, you see the differences (see Working With Workflows).

It is important to note that Contributor's comparison feature detects changes in content only, not changes in formatting. For example, if you change the font size of text or make it bold, but otherwise do not modify the text, you will not see any differences between the two versions. However, you replace one word with another word, you will see the difference. Images are slightly different. If you resize or replace an image, you see the difference.