Display two documents side by side

[Ron M]

Is there a way to display two Word documents side by side on the same screen so that I can compare them easily?  This would involve the display of two instances of the Word app, as least that is what I think now.  Thanks.

Ron M

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[PKCano]

I’m running Word 2010 on WIn8.1 and this works:

Double click the Word icon on the desktop. File\Open choose file.
Double click the Word icon on the desktop again, opens a second incidence of Word, File\Open choose file.

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doriel

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[doriel]

Correct, you have launch two instances of Word2010 to see them side by side.
Excel2010 can do one more trick – you can have two “windows” inside “the bigger one”, but its very unpleasant for me to work that way. Just my opinion.

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[Bundaburra]

I started Word and did File > Open to open a file.  From that window I did File > Open to open a second file.  The second file overlaid the first one on the screen, but the task bar showed both documents and I could switch between them.  Meanwhile, Process Explorer showed that only one instance of Winword.exe was running.   I then clicked on View, and selected “View side by side”.  The screen then split in half, with one document on each side.

Windows 10 Pro 64 bit 20H2

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[Ron M]

PKCano, that seems to work.  Thanks.

Ron M

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[Ron M]

Bundaburra, that did not seem to work for me.  When I clicked on View and then “View side by side”, I simply got the document in “side by side” mode showing two pages of the same document.  Maybe I am not doing it correctly?

Ron M

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[Bundaburra]

Did you have the two documents open?  I guess you did, because for me if I have only one document open, “View side by side” is greyed out, and I cannot open the same document twice.   The “View side by side” pop-up help bubble says “Instead of switching back and forth between documents, view them side by side.  It makes comparing them easier”.  This seems like exactly what you want to do, but maybe you have a different version of Word?  Mine is the one contained within the current version of Office/Microsoft 365.  Do you get the same pop-up bubble?  Is your version of Word up to date?  Running out of ideas, sorry.

Windows 10 Pro 64 bit 20H2

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[anonymous]

This is probably obvious since it’s been in Windows since Windows 7 I believe, but just in case it helps, Win+Left and Win+Right will quickly snap the open window to take up half the screen. Dragging a window to the left or right of the screen will do the same.

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doriel

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[doriel]

Cool! I did this by mouse, your way is much better! Thank you, man from the crowd 🙂

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[WSruosChalet]

Ron M wrote:

Bundaburra, that did not seem to work for me.  When I clicked on View and then “View side by side”, I simply got the document in “side by side” mode showing two pages of the same document.  Maybe I am not doing it correctly?

Ron M

Sounds like you used the Side-to-Side page movement option, not the Side-by-Side view from the Window section of the View tab on the ribbon (see screenshot).

The “Side-by-Side” VIEW function offers an easy one-click toggle between side-by-side and normal views of any two open documents.  It also allows for optional “scroll sync” so you can scroll through two documents simultaneously to compare multi-page documents with ease.

Manipulating separate windows using SNAP or other windows sizing and positioning operations to get side-by-side comparisons is more cumbersome.

If you’re comparing two Word documents, why not use the built-in functionality?

• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by WSruosChalet.
• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by WSruosChalet.
• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by WSruosChalet.

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doriel

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[doriel]

If you’re comparing two Word documents, why not use the built-in functionality?

Your screenshot is not Word 2010 panel. Why do I think @ron-m is asking about O2010? Im trying now and this does not work for this MS Office version. Im pretty sure newer ones can do that.

What can be done from Word 2010 ribbon, is to open new instance (window) of the program and open second document there.

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 1809 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by doriel. Reason: screenshot
• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by doriel.

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[doriel]

The option to “view side by side” enables only if I have already opened two Word documents. Please ignore czech language and imagine that in english 🙂
See the buuton grayed out.

Open the second document. Then press the button and it aligns two windows side by side. Thats just old Word and you must get use to it 🙂

Useful function is to “scroll both simultaniously”.

Dell Latitude E6530, Intel Core i5 @ 2.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, W10 1809 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

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[Ron M]

Just to clarify things, if that helps – I am using Office 365 running Under Windows 10 Version 2004.  WSruosChalet, I suspect that you may be right in your conclusion about what was clicked as I didn’t realize both existed.

One other thing that occurred to me is that in Windows, if I remember correctly, you can split the screen to have two instances of Window running.  If this is possible, then, presumably, it would be possible to have an instance of Word running in each window.  You could scroll each document independently of the other and basically treat each one as running in their own Windows instance.  Am I correct in this approach?  If so, how would it work?

Ron M

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[Skeptic50]

Anonymous from December 1, 2020 at 6:27 pm,

When you wrote

“but just in case it helps, Win+Left and Win+Right will quickly snap the open window to take up half the screen. “

For Left and Right did you mean Left Arrow and Right Arrow? If not, what did you mean by Left and Right? I get that you meant the Windows key when you said Win. Windows XP had on option to view two programs side-by-side with each taking up half of the screen but I have not been able to find the equivalent in Windows 10.

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[anonymous]

Yes, Left Arrow and Right Arrow.

That should work in Windows 10, and on Windows 7 and up you can also drag a window to the left or right of the screen to achieve the same result.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/snap-your-windows-885a9b1e-a983-a3b1-16cd-c531795e6241

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doriel

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