RE: showing text correlation - other than by color ?

[<mbaker -at- analecta -dot- com>]

If there are large passages of both docs that are the same, and then some parts that differ between the two, the simplest way to show this might be to print the common parts in a single page-wide column and where the documents diverge, break the page into two columns, one for each version. This way there is really no need to highlight anything. 

Of course, the viability of this depends on exactly how fine grained you want the calling out of differences to be. If two sentences differ in the placement of a comma, for instance, it is necessary to highlight that comma, or is it enough to note that the two sentences differ and allow the reader to find the difference for themselves?

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+mbaker=analecta -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+mbaker=analecta -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Wright, Lynne
Sent: Thursday, February 9, 2017 3:26 PM
To: Monique Semp <monique -dot- semp -at- earthlink -dot- net>; TechWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: RE: showing text correlation - other than by color ?

I'm a little confused: are you saying that there are a series of text excerpts from one doc in column 1, and the equivalent excerpts from doc 2 are in the second column, but there are no row breaks between each excerpt? Because then for sure I'd say break the content up so that its one passage per row; otherwise it must be tricky keeping them horizontally aligned with each other. 

And can you clarify how are the colors currently applied... are you saying that each text passage may contain multiple colored highlights, with each color representing some kind of coded difference? Or are the colors used to highlight equivalent text for comparison?

If the docs are mostly equivalent, couldn't you only highlight the parts that DON'T match, using some neutralish grey highlight?  

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Monique Semp
Sent: February-09-17 2:39 PM
To: TechWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: showing text correlation - other than by color ?

Hello, WR-L-ers,

Just looking for alternative ideas for showing logical correlation between two big sections of text from two different docs. The goal is to show that doc-1 and doc-2 are basically equivalent.

As the text was given to me, itâs in a 2-column, 1-long-row table: doc-1 on the left, doc-2 on the right. (The text in the table isnât the full text of either doc; itâs just the relevant portions of doc-1 and doc-2 that discuss the same concepts.) The corresponding portions are color-highlighted. So thereâre gray, hello, green, etc. portions in both columns, where the gray sections discuss one point, the green another, etc.

It looks very jarring, thatâs for sure. Plus there are all sorts of color-blindness considerations, and itâs hard to read.

I thought of simply breaking it up into separate rows (the selected text is in the same order for both docs, not interleaved throughout), which is much easier to read and parse. But it loses a lot of the visual impact showing how closely the docs correlate.

Anyone have any other ideas?

-Monique
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