Advancements in desktop technology have brought more tools to our desktops encompassing more than just design and layout. We are all also much more proficient at copy editing from our desktops, and it's now even easier to use tools and techniques to help us streamline our editing skills. If you need to compare and combine versions of the same document, for example, to ensure a seamless editing job from one document to another, then there's no better program than Microsoft Office word 2007. Revisions, amendments, and updates are easy to deal with ensuring accuracy and speed when you need it most.

Sometimes it's not just a case of what you are trying to say, but more importantly how you are saying it that counts when you need to get a professional document finalised. If your organisation uses style guidelines, or house styles, you can be sure that following a precise code of standards for text documents provides uniformity in style and formatting of a document. Or even if you have your own personal rules such as writing out numbers from one to ten, or never using initial capitals for job titles, Word 2007 provides you with the tools you need.

Perhaps you are a student or scholar and have to follow various academic guidelines when it comes to writing specific text; or you need to adhere to academic style guides that set out strict rules about formatting style for citations and bibliographies; even following a style for journals relating to medicine, journalism, the law, government, business, and industry is commonplace. It's important for any organisations to follow a code of writing or style guide so that there is a uniform style of communicating. This saves confusion with the meaning of words or technical information, and gives the reader an easier understanding of what you are trying to say.

Obviously it's not just printed matter; and web site style guides cover a publication's visual and technical aspects, along with text. Just as many organisations review good practice, style guides are usually revised periodically to take account of changes in conventions and usage. Publishers' style guides, for example, establish house rules for language use, such as spelling, italics and punctuation; and deal primarily with ensuring consistency.

Some style guides relate to the design of documents, and deal with typography and white space. Many publication, including newspapers, use graphic design style guides to demonstrate a preferred layout and formatting. They are often extremely detailed in specifying, which fonts and colours to use. Such guides allow a large design team to produce visually consistent work for one organisation.

So, whether you need to carry out a "light edit" (changes that do not substantively change the theme, typeface, tone, structure, characters), such as spelling, or grammar; or a "heavy edit" that changes the tone, structure, characters, or other elements contained in the work, then it's time to compare and combine with Microsoft Word 2007.

On the review tab, in the compare group, 'Compare and Combine' provides enhanced options to allow you to specify the types of changes you want to compare or merge. These include formatting and white space, along with displaying changes at the word or character level. This option is useful if you want to send separate copies of an original document to different reviewers, for example. Then, when the documents are returned to you, you can combine the changes into one file. Or it might be that you want to compare two versions of a document to compare the differences in each. The difference between compare and combine is that compare is used when comparing the differences between two documents, and combine is used when comparing two or more documents as well as identifying who changed what in the document.

Ideally, when you use compare, the original and the revised document should not contain tracked changes. If either document contains tracked changes, Word treats the documents as if the changes have been accepted and they will not be displayed in the comparison document. Additionally, all revisions in the comparison document are attributed to a single author, and you can see what changes have been made to the original document regardless of whether track changes was turned on or off when modifications were made. The changes made in the revised document are shown in the original as tracked changes. The tri-pane review panel displays the original, revised, and comparison results on the screen at the same time.

The compare function can also be used as a tool to keep reviewer names, dates, and times of revisions confidential. If you no longer have an original copy of a document containing tracked changes, simply create a copy of the document, reject all changes, and use it as the original. Display the compare dialog box and select the original and the revised documents. In the revised area in the 'Label Changes With' text box, type another name, such as 'Reviewer'. This method does not allow you to change the dates and times of revisions, but all revision dates and times reflect the system date and time that the compare function was used. This doesn't apply to comments that may be contained in the documents.