One of the clunkiest parts of the traditional review process is verifying a new version against previous feedback. Reviewers have to track down the last version and sift through old email threads to check what was agreed – wasting precious time for everyone involved.
With Filestage’s compare versions feature, you can solve these problems by viewing any two versions side by side, including all the comments. This makes it easy for collaborators and reviewers to check who said what about which version in a matter of moments.
Comparing versions side by side
To compare versions, open a file with more than one version in Filestage, then click “Compare” at the top of the screen.
You’ll then see the two latest versions side by side, including all the comments. And if you want to compare different versions, use the dropdown menus at the top of the screen.
💡Top tip: The comments sidebar in Filestage doubles as a to-do list for collaborators. This can be helpful for creatives (who use it as a to-do list while working on the next version) or managers (to verify that everyone’s feedback has been met)
Checking visual changes with overlay mode
When comparing versions, click “Overlay” at the top of the screen. This puts both versions on top of each other. Then you can fade from one to the other using a simple slider, making it easy to pinpoint even the most subtle changes in your files.
Focus on what’s changed with text compare mode
When comparing two versions of a document or PDF, click “Compare text” at the top of the screen.
This highlights everything that’s been added to the latest version in green and everything that’s been removed from the previous version in red.
Here’s how auto-compare text helps reviewers give feedback faster:
Focus on changes while skipping past content you’ve already approved
Quickly check nothing was removed that shouldn’t have been
Save time having to re-read documents from top to bottom
Checking your version history and exporting review reports
If compliance and auditing is important to your organization, then revisiting previous versions and review rounds is essential.
In Filestage, you can access the previous versions of a file by clicking the version number on your project dashboard.
This gives you instant access to:
Who approved each version or requested changes
How many comments were added and what was discussed
Which versions were shared in each reviewer group
💡Top tip: Click on the status indicators for any version to see timestamps for when the review decisions were submitted.
Exporting file and review reports
In Filestage, you can revisit your old projects at any time – even if they’ve been archived. But in regulated industries like finance or law, you may need to keep an audit trail on your own systems too.
Here are two ways Filestage helps with this:
Review reports – Download a PDF containing every comment and review decision for a specific version in a specific reviewer group, including timestamps.
Full file reports – Download a PDF containing every comment and review decision for every version across all your reviewer groups, including timestamps.
To access the file report menu, click the three dots in the bottom-right corner of your file or review.
