You can take two Workiva documents and compare them with each other. A blackline PDF will be created to show the similarities and differences between the documents. This will reduce the amount of effort and time to review your reports.
These are some examples that you may want to compare:
- Two different periods of the same report (i.e. comparing a 2023 10-K with a 2024 10-K).
- Different entities or subsidiaries reports to one another.
- An entity report to a master template or another entity.
For cross-document blackline PDFs, the comparison between two documents will only be within the generated blackline PDF. The History and Blackline within a single document will not be affected.
Note: Features built after cross-document blackline won't be noted in the blackline PDF. This would include changes to footnotes, automated table of contents, floating objects, etc.
Create cross-document blackline PDF
To create a blackline PDF:
- In the Files or Home page, check the boxes next to two Workiva documents you want to compare.
Note: The first document selected will be used as the base to compare the second document. You can adjust the order later before you download the PDF.
- Select Blackline in the toolbar.
- Rename your blackline and check the documents. To finish, click Download PDF.
Alternatively, you have the option to change the documents to compare in the dropdown.
View a blackline PDF
Once you’ve downloaded the PDF, you can open it up and view the first page to know what to expect.
It’ll include details such as which documents were compared with each other, time and dates of the creation of the documents and the blackline PDF, and an explanation of the blackline markup.
Note: Any changes made to a table will show as a change to the entire table in the blackline PDF.