Every single update meant creating:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- A new MS Word document with the latest changes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The old MS Word document with tracked changes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Another old MS Word document, but this time with colour-coded highlights to show what changed and why.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- PDFs of all three documents.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
So, updating one document meant creating six documents in total!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since I’m keen on automation, I couldn’t resist the challenge of whether I could automate this in my own time. Since this code doesn’t contain any project-specific info and was made in my spare time, I figured I’d explain how it works in case it helps anyone else facing a similar document-pocalypse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ghothi.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/pycharm64_21-May-2024_21.04.45PM.png\")
Screenshot of the software<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The Goal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Create a tool that could:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- Compare two Word docs (old vs new)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Automatically generate tracked changes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Automatically highlight differences with the specific colour coding requirements.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Automatically generate the corresponding PDFs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Building the GUI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
First, we need a user-friendly way to control this process. To do this, I used Tkinter to create a simple GUI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n