How to redline without Word
Word is not the only way, and for some of these jobs it was never the quickest. What each alternative can and cannot do.
Word is the default in most legal practice, but it is not the only way to produce a comparison, and for some of these jobs it was never the quickest. Each of these alternatives does something real, and each has a limit worth knowing before you rely on it.
Google Docs
Google Docs can compare two documents: Tools, then Compare documents, choosing the other version from Drive. It produces a new document with the differences as suggestions, which behave much like tracked changes and can be accepted or rejected.
For everyday drafting it also has Suggesting mode, which records edits as proposals rather than changes — the closest equivalent to working with tracked changes on.
The limit is fidelity. A Word file opened in Docs is converted, and a heavily formatted agreement — automatic numbering, cross-references, styles from a firm template — does not always survive the round trip intact. Comparing two documents that have both been through that conversion can report differences created by the conversion rather than by anyone's drafting.
LibreOffice
LibreOffice Writer is free, runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and reads and writes.docx. It compares documents from Edit, then Track Changes, then Compare Document, and it records edits with the same menu's Record option.
It is the closest free equivalent to what Word does, and for a document you need to hand to a Word user it is the more conservative choice of the two above. Its own conversion of complex Word formatting is good rather than perfect, so the same caution applies: check the result before sending it.
In the browser
For a clause or a paragraph, the fastest route involves no application at all. Paste both versions into a comparison tool and read the redline. There is no file to save, no conversion, and nothing to install.
That is what Redline Pad does, and the reason it is worth mentioning alongside the others is confidentiality rather than speed: the comparison runs inside your browser, so the text is not uploaded anywhere. Many browser-based comparison tools send what you paste to a server. If you are working with a client's document, that is the question to ask of any of them, this one included — and the privacy page explains how to check the answer here rather than take it on trust.
What you give up
| Approach | Good for | Cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Google Docs | Whole documents, collaborative drafting, working from anywhere without an install. | Guarantee fidelity of complex Word formatting through the conversion. |
| LibreOffice | Whole documents offline, and output a Word user can open. | Match Word exactly on the most heavily formatted agreements. |
| A browser comparison | A clause or a paragraph, immediately, with no file and no install. | See numbering, styles, schedules, or anything outside the text you pasted. |
None of these replaces Word's Compare on a full agreement heading for signature. If that is the job and desktop Word is available to you,use it.
Sending it to a Word user
Whatever you used, the recipient probably has Word. Two things make that go smoothly.
Export to .docx rather than sending a link or a PDF, unless a PDF was asked for — a comparison they cannot accept and reject is a comparison they will ask you to resend. And open the exported file once yourself before it goes, ideally in Word if you can get to a copy, because conversion problems are visible in a second and embarrassing a day later.
Where the comparison is of a clause rather than a document, none of this applies: paste the marked-up text into the email itself, where it needs no application to read.