Troubleshooting

Click More info, then Run anyway. SmartScreen shows this warning for programs that aren't signed with a paid code-signing certificate. If your organization blocks unsigned programs entirely, ask your IT department to allow WCopyfind.exe.

• Check the lists. Old documents are never compared with each other. If both documents are in the old list, move one to the new list.
• Lower the thresholds. Short documents may share fewer words than Report pairs that share at least (100 by default). Try 20.
• Look for edits. If the shared text was lightly changed, allow 2 imperfect words and set the matching percentage (More Options) to 80.
• Check PDFs. A scanned PDF has no text to read. See the FAQ.
• Test with a copy. Compare a document with an identical copy of itself. If that doesn't match 100%, WCopyfind is having trouble reading that file; save it as .docx or .txt and try again.

WCopyfind skips documents it can't read and lists them in the report with the reason. Common causes:

• The file is open in another program that locks it: close it there.
• The file is damaged, password-protected, or not really the type its extension says: open it in its own program and save a fresh copy.
• The file was moved or renamed after you added it: remove it from the list and add it again.

This usually happens with plain-text files in languages other than English. A .txt file without a UTF-8 marker is read using Windows' standard character set. Open the file in Notepad, choose Save as, set Encoding to UTF-8, and compare again. Old .doc files that Windows can't read properly may also show stray characters; saving them as .docx fixes this.

Click Open Report, or open matches.html in the report folder yourself (by default, Documents\WCopyfind Reports). Check More Options: Open the report in my browser when the comparison finishes may be turned off.

WCopyfind couldn't save files in the report folder. Choose a folder you can write to in More Options (your Documents folder always works), and close any report files that are open in other programs.

Allowing imperfect words makes comparisons slower; try 0 for a first pass. Very large collections take longer because every document is compared with every other: 1,000 new documents make almost 500,000 pairs. Put reference material in the old list, since old documents aren't compared with each other. And if your computer is running low on memory, close other programs.

That's usually text all the documents legitimately share, such as the assignment prompt, a template, or a standard cover page. Remove it from the documents, or raise Report pairs that share at least above its length.

A number next to punctuation, or one that changed between copies, can break a match. Turn on Ignore numbers, and Ignore punctuation only at the start and end of words in More Options.

WCopyfind saves them when you close it. If it was closed abnormally (for example, by shutting down Windows while it was running), the latest changes may be lost. Save important document lists with Save List to File.