Excel Compare and Merge

In this article we want to give you a short step-by-step instruction on how to compare 2 Excel workbooks and merge comparison results.

To start the comparison you should open 2 Excel workbooks. xlCompare has several commands which open workbook from disk:

  • [...] button near Compare button
  • File | Open | ... menu command
  • Browse ... item from the drop down list in the combo box

At this step you have 2 workbooks opened and you can start the comparison. Press Compare button to compare your workbooks. You may ask us what about selecting comparison options, aligning data etc. This is not needed. Our purpose is to find a best comparison strategy without interaction with user.

A few seconds (time depends on the size of your workbook) and xlCompare gives you color-coded comparison report, like this one:

We suggest you to browse this report and review the results.

Now you can start merging your data. You can copy rows and columns to another worksheet using clipboard or using merge commands which are present on the every item in the Difference Browser. Every discrepancy found in the workbooks is placed into the Difference Browser. Every item, which represents changed data, has a checkbox. When you check it - modification is applied to another workbook. This is easy. Uncheck it to undo the operation.

When all changes you want to merge are processed, you can save the workbooks. When you've modified workbook, xlCompare displays Save icon near the Compare button. Press it and your workbook is saved.

So, after a few simple steps you get your data including cell values, formulas and formatting options merged.

If you have any questions about the software, please contact us.