Bill Comparison and Redlining Tool

How-To Guide

What This Does

Compare two bill documents side-by-side to see exactly what text has been added, removed, or changed. This tool generates a redline view, highlighting the differences between the selected versions.

When You’d Use This

  • Identify changes between the introduced version of a bill and a later, amended version.
  • Compare a bill with its companion bill from the other chamber.
  • Analyze the differences between two separate but related bills.

How To Do It

You can compare documents from a single bill page or use the dedicated cross-bill comparison tool.

Compare Versions of a Single Bill

  1. Navigate to the bill page.
  2. Locate the Compare Bill Documents or Documents section.
  3. Select the checkboxes next to the two document versions you want to compare.
  4. Click Compare.

Compare Two Different Bills

  1. From a bill page, find the Compare Different Bills banner.
  2. Click the Compare Bills button to go to the comparison tool.
  3. In the Document A card, use the search bar to find the first bill by its number and state (e.g., ‘CA SB 1’).
  4. Select the specific document version from the results.
  5. In the Document B card, search for and select the second bill document.
  6. Click the Compare button at the top of the page.

What Happens Next

A Comparison Result window opens, displaying the two documents side-by-side.* Text that has been removed from the first document is highlighted.* Text that has been added to the second document is highlighted.* Unchanged text is not highlighted.

This redline view allows you to scan the documents quickly to identify every modification.

Pro Tips

  • You can compare different types of documents, including Bill Texts, Amendments, Supplements, and your own Uploaded Documents.
  • From a bill's page, you can compare any two available documents for that specific bill. Use the dedicated Compare Bills tool to compare documents from two entirely different bills.

Limitations

  • The on-page comparison tool is available for bills from 2020 and later.
  • You can only compare two documents at a time.

Enterprise Differences

None.