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Draftable Legal offers five add-ins for Microsoft 365. Their names are similar, so it is easy to mix them up. This article explains what each one does and which ones your organization should deploy.
Short answer: for most organizations, deploy Draftable in Office for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and Draftable in Outlook for Outlook. Add Redline in Email if your users want to mark up the text of emails. The for add-ins are for teams who would rather run every comparison in the Draftable desktop application.

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The five add-ins at a glance

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”In” versus “for”: the key difference

The word in the name tells you where your users do their work.
  • Draftable in Office and Draftable in Outlook open a Draftable panel on the right-hand side of Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook. Users choose their files, pick a comparison type and profile, run the comparison, and save, email, print or copy the result, all without leaving the Office app. When they want the full comparison viewer, View in Draftable opens the result in the desktop application.
  • Draftable for Office and Draftable for Outlook add buttons that send the current file, selection or email attachments to the Draftable desktop application. The New Comparison window opens with those files loaded, and users finish the comparison there.
Both types give users the same comparison results. The difference is where users do the work: in the Office app, or in the Draftable desktop application.
An easy way to remember it: in Office means you stay in Office. For Office sends your file to Draftable.

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What each add-in does

Opens a Draftable panel inside Word, Excel or PowerPoint, so users can run a comparison without leaving the app.
  • Choose files for each side: the current document, text you type or paste, a file from your computer or document management system (DMS), or a recently compared file.
  • Choose the comparison type: Redline, Tracked Changes, or Side by Side.
  • Choose a profile: apply any of the user’s Draftable profiles.
  • Compare Open: compare files that are already open in the Office app.
  • Compare Versions: compare versions of a document stored in iManage, NetDocuments, SharePoint or Epona.
  • Excel: compare a single worksheet or a selected range of cells.
  • PowerPoint: compare selected slides.
  • Next steps: open, save (including to your DMS), email, print or copy the result from the panel, or open it in the full Draftable viewer.
Using Draftable in Office · Installing Draftable in Office
Adds buttons to Word, Excel and PowerPoint that send content to the Draftable desktop application for comparison.
  • Send as Older / Send as Newer: load the open file into Draftable as the older or newer document.
  • Send Text as Older / Send Text as Newer (Word): load selected text into Draftable.
  • Compare Open: pick two open files and send them to Draftable.
  • Compare Versions: pick two versions of a document from iManage, NetDocuments, SharePoint or Epona and send them to Draftable.
  • Excel: send a worksheet or a selected range of cells.
  • PowerPoint: send selected slides.
Users choose the comparison type and profile in the Draftable desktop application, not in the add-in.Using Draftable for Office · Configuring Draftable for Office
Opens a Draftable panel inside Outlook, both when reading and when writing an email.
  • Choose files for each side: an attachment from the current email (including DMS links in the email), text you type or paste, a file from your computer or DMS, or a recently compared file.
  • Choose the comparison type and profile, just as in Draftable in Office.
  • Next steps: open, save, print or copy the result, or attach it to the reply you are writing.
Using Draftable in Outlook · Installing Draftable in Outlook
Adds buttons to Outlook that send email attachments to the Draftable desktop application, so users do not have to save attachments before comparing them.
  • Compare attachments: choose which attachments to send to Draftable.
  • 1-Click Compare: send the email’s attachments to Draftable in one click.
  • DMS links: document links from iManage, NetDocuments and other DMSs in the email are picked up along with attachments.
Using Draftable for Outlook · Installing Draftable for Outlook
Redline in Email is different from the other four. It does not compare documents or attachments. It compares the text of emails.
  • See what changed: open an email and see how it differs from the email before it, marked up as tracked changes.
  • Compare with a different email: pick another email in the conversation to compare against.
  • Edit with tracked changes: everything the user types, deletes or moves is tracked.
  • Accept or reject changes, one at a time or all at once.
  • Send the result: put the marked-up text into the draft or a reply.
Because it does a different job, Redline in Email works well alongside Draftable in Outlook or Draftable for Outlook. It does not replace them.Using Redline in Email · Configuring Redline in Email

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Which should you deploy?

We recommend the in add-ins for most organizations. They give users the whole comparison workflow, from choosing files to sharing the result, without switching applications.

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What every add-in needs

  • Draftable Legal installed and running on each user’s computer. Draftable does the work behind every add-in, even when users stay inside Office. Redline in Email needs Draftable to check the user’s license.
  • A minimum Draftable Legal version. Draftable in Office, Draftable for Office, Draftable in Outlook and Draftable for Outlook need version 25.10.000 or later. Redline in Email needs version 26.9.0.1 or later.
  • Deployment through the Microsoft 365 admin center. An administrator deploys each add-in once from Integrated apps. Each installation article above has the steps and the manifest URL.
  • Access to dl.draftable.com from users’ computers.
These five are Draftable’s modern JavaScript add-ins. Draftable Legal also includes older COM add-ins for Word, Excel and Outlook, which show a Draftable tab in the ribbon. If you are unsure which ones your users have, see COM add-ins vs JavaScript add-ins.