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While this topic might not directly apply to programming SharePoint, it does apply to SharePoint programmers. One task that SharePoint programmers are often asked to perform is feasibility. Everyone wants to know, "Can SharePoint do this?" or "Can SharePoint do that?". Recently, I have been asked if SharePoint will allow end users to take a document from a document library and visually compare that document with previous versions also stored in SharePoint. Additionally, the question also wanted to know if the comparison could be done against both major and minor versions, and the source and target could be any version. E.g. can you compare v0.1 with v1.5 or v0.2 and v0.3 - you don't have to compare against the latest version all the time.
At first I thought - well, you can get multiple versions out of SharePoint pretty easily, but I didn't know of any built-in SharePoint tool for doing "diff"s. I was about to start chasing down OpenSource Word "diff" tools to see if I could come up with something that would satisfy the question when I stumbled across some information. Turns out that Word 2007 includes an extremely powerful comparison panel. To get to it, just click open the Review ribbon, and from there, hit the Compare drop-down toolbar menu and pick what kind of comparison you want to do.
Check out the screenshot below (click it to get the full image from Flickr):
You get the familiar "track changes" look in the middle panel and left panel, as well as a look at both versions of the document in their entirety in the right panel. Using this new 3-pane comparison review panel, you can see every single change that was made to a Word document - you can see who made the change, you can see comments left by reviewers, you can see changes made to the header and footer of the document, you can even look at changes made to the document properties/metadata.
My stock answer for msot SharePoint 2003 questions always used to be, "Yes, SharePoint can do that, but not out of the box. It'll require a lot of custom coding." At which point I would have to launch into a justification speech for the ensuing herculean effort of programming I was about to suggest to the client. Now, I can finally say, "Yes, SharePoint includes that in the box, and it kicks ass."
