Using the Combined Departures Table to review many documents at once

The Combined Departures Table brings the results of a multi-document comparison into a single clause-by-clause grid. Learn how to run one in Baseline or Timeline mode, review changes in the grid, and export the result.

The settings menu was reorganised in Draftable Legal 26.6. If you are on 26.6 or later, follow the “26.6 and later” tabs below. On earlier versions, follow “Before 26.6”. To check your version, open Settings. The version number shows at the bottom-left (for example, v26.6.0).

What is the Combined Departures Table?

The Combined Departures Table lets you compare many documents at once and read all of the results in a single clause-by-clause grid, instead of running separate comparisons and piecing the results together yourself.

The left-hand column lists every clause found across the document set. Each comparison then appears as its own column, and each cell shows the full clause text for that comparison with insertions and deletions marked inline.

The Combined Departures Table is available in Draftable Legal from version 26.8.0. It is not available in Draftable Business.

How it differs from the standard Departures Table

The Departures Table summarizes the changes between two documents as a Word document, organized by clause. The Combined Departures Table applies the same clause-first idea to many documents at once, and presents it as an interactive grid inside Draftable that you review in place before exporting.

	Departures Table	Combined Departures Table
Documents	Two	Many
Where you review	In Word, after export	In the Draftable grid
Output formats	DOCX	DOCX or XLSX
Started from	A single comparison	A One-to-Many or Timeline comparison

The two modes

The Combined Departures Table answers two different questions depending on how you set the comparison up.

Baseline

One anchor document, with everything else compared against it. Use this to see how far each document has drifted from a standard or preferred form.

Timeline

Documents in chronological order, each compared to the one before it. Use this to see what changed at each round of a negotiation.

Baseline suits portfolio work: a set of preferred supply terms against the executed supplier contracts, a base restrictive covenant against its variants, or approved facility terms against the active loan agreements.

Timeline suits negotiation work: an agreement through successive rounds between the parties, an amendment chronology read as a sequence, or any document tracked across its versions.

Starting a Combined Departures Table

Both modes start from the New Comparison window and run as a Redline in Draftable comparison.

1. Choose your comparison mode

   For Baseline, start a One-to-Many Comparison. Put your anchor document in the Older document slot on the left, and the documents you are measuring against it in the Newer documents list on the right.

   

   For Timeline, start a Timeline Comparison. Documents go into a single vertical list, with the top of the list being the earliest version. Draftable shows the resulting comparison chain underneath the list, for example “5 comparisons: v0–v1, v1–v2 …”.

   
2. Set the comparison type to Redline in Draftable

   Select Redline in Draftable from the Comparison Type dropdown, and choose your profile as normal.

3. Click Compare

   All of the comparisons run together. When they finish, click Open Combined Table.

   

The Combined Departures Table opens in its own tab, leaving your comparison results tab available if you want to go back to the individual comparisons.

Reading the grid

The Summary panel on the right gives you the state of the review at a glance:

• The number of clauses that contain changes
• The total number of changes
• The number of comparisons in the table
• Changes broken down by clause
• A review progress counter, with a Review next button

Sorting to find what matters

Clauses can be sorted by the extent of change, measured as the total number of words added and removed. You can sort across the whole table to find the clauses that moved most overall, or sort within a single comparison column to find where one particular document or one round of drafting did the most.

This is usually the fastest way into a large document set.

Working through the review

Clauses can be marked as done. Review next jumps to the next clause that is not yet done, so you can work through the table systematically rather than tracking your own place in it.

Cell options

Right-click any cell in the grid to open its options menu.

The menu offers:

• Copy selected cells, Copy original, Copy new and Copy marked-up
• Browse this comparison and Open in viewer
• Status tags: Reviewed, Pending, Rejected and Re-check, plus Clear status

Copy selected cells is the only action that applies to more than one cell. Every other action in this menu applies only to the cell you right-clicked.

Filtering the grid

Clause filters

The Clause filters menu narrows the grid down to the clauses that still need attention.

You can filter by:

• Status — No status, Reviewed, Pending, Rejected, plus any custom tags your organization has configured
• Progress — Not done or Done
• Includes notes
• Changed clauses only

Columns

The Columns menu controls which comparison columns are visible. Hide the comparisons you are not working on so the remaining columns are wider and easier to read side by side.

View options

Density

Choose Comfortable for roomier rows, or Compact to fit more rows on screen.

Heatmap

Shades the grid according to where change is concentrated. Choose Off, Row and column headers to shade only the clause column and comparison headers, or Full to also shade every changed cell.

On a Timeline set, the heatmap is the quickest way to see which clauses were contested round after round and which settled early.

Reference document

Toggles the reference document column on and off. This is the baseline document in Baseline mode, or the first version in Timeline mode, shown in the left-most column so you can read each change against its starting point.

Clause

Controls how clauses are labelled.

• Reference numbering numbers the clauses for reference within the table.
• Suggested titles names each clause by its content, which makes scanning a long table considerably easier. With this off, each clause shows its own heading text from the document.

Wrap

Wrap labels shows long clause labels in full instead of clipping them. Wrap cells shows the full change text in each cell, growing the row height so a whole line can be compared across columns.

Suggested titles are generated on your own machine. The labelling uses a small model that ships with Draftable and runs locally. No document content is sent to Draftable or to any external service to generate them.

Suggested titles are a display aid only. They do not change the underlying clause text or the document’s own numbering, and they work best on standard-format contracts where clauses and definitions follow a recognizable structure.

Adjusting the comparison

The Adjust menu has two options.

• Reload from source pulls the underlying files again and reruns the comparison. Use this when the source documents have changed since you started.
• Adjust comparison takes you back to the compare selector with your documents and settings already populated, so you can change the profile or the document set and rerun.

Reviewing clause by clause

The Clause review panel is the main review surface.

From here you can:

• Move through the clauses in order
• Add clause-level notes
• Inspect each comparison individually, with the number of words added and removed
• Apply a status tag per comparison
• Open the relevant comparison in the viewer
• Mark the clause as done

Status tags mark a cell or comparison as Reviewed, Pending, Rejected or Re-check. Clear the status when it no longer applies.

Notes can be added at clause level or against an individual comparison, depending on where you are working.

Open in viewer opens the relevant document pair and takes you to that exact change in the context of the full document. Each column header also has its own open-in-viewer control for opening that whole comparison.

Exporting

The Combined Departures Table can be exported as a DOCX or an XLSX file. The remaining export options are the same as for a standard comparison, including saving directly to your DMS.

Your review travels with the output. Notes and status tags applied in the grid are included in the exported file, with notes appearing as review comments where the format supports them. This means the review you carry out in the grid becomes the deliverable you hand on, rather than something you have to write up separately afterwards.

Frequently asked questions

How many documents can I compare at once?

There is no fixed limit. In practice the useful ceiling is how many columns you can read comfortably. Use the Columns menu to hide comparisons you are not working on, and Compact density to fit more on screen.

Does this replace the standard Departures Table?

No. The standard Departures Table is still the right output when you are comparing two documents and want a Word summary organized by clause. The Combined Departures Table is for reviewing several documents together.

Which comparison type do I need to select?

Redline in Draftable. The Combined Departures Table is built from redline comparisons, so it is not available from a Side by Side comparison.

Are Suggested titles generated by an external AI service?

No. The model that generates them ships with Draftable and runs on your own machine. No document content leaves your computer to produce them.

Can I get back to the individual comparisons?

Yes. The Combined Departures Table opens in its own tab, so your comparison results tab stays available. You can also use Open in viewer from a cell, from the cell options menu, or from a column header to open a single comparison in the full viewer.