How to compare two Word documents on a Mac

Updated 1 October 2026

Comparing two versions of a document on a Mac works much the same as on Windows, as long as you have Word. If you don't, there are still good options.

With Word for Mac

1. Open Word. You don't need either document open first.
2. Go to the Review tab and click Compare, then Compare Documents.
3. Choose the Original document and the Revised document. The small arrow button lets you set which name the changes are labelled with.
4. Click OK. Word opens a new document with every difference shown as a tracked change.

If the result is cluttered, open Compare → Compare Documents again and use the expand arrow to switch off the kinds of change you don't need, such as formatting or white space.

Without Word

• Pages can open .docx files but has no feature for comparing two documents.
• Google Docs has Tools → Compare documents, but both files must be Google Docs, so you'd need to upload and convert them first. Conversion can change formatting, and the files end up in your Google Drive.
• A browser-based comparer works on any Mac with Safari, Chrome or Firefox and needs no install. RevisionProof reads the .docx files directly in your browser without uploading them, and shows changes to text, tables, headers, footers, footnotes and formatting.

Tips for a clean comparison

• Accept or reject any existing tracked changes in both files first, so you compare finished text with finished text.
• Make sure both files are .docx. If one is an older .doc file, open it in Word or Pages and save or export it as .docx.
• Use side-by-side view for long documents, and filter to "only changes" to skip unchanged pages.