Ignore specific columns when comparing Excel sheets

You need to compare only several columns on the Excel worksheets and ignore the rest. How to do this in xlCompare.

xlCompare gives you 2 methods to ignore data on the worksheet.

xlCompare ignores hidden data from being compared. So, to ignore data in some columns just hide them.

xlCompare hides columns exactly in the same way as Excel.

• Select the entire column
• Right click on the heading
• Apply Hide command from the context menu

Columns with the same names are hidden synchronously on both worksheets.

So, just in a few clicks you hide all the columns you would like to ignore.

xlCompare allows to ignore specific columns from the comparison. So, if you don’t need to compare the data, right click on the column heading and mark this column as Ignored in the right click menu.

The ignored column is visible, but not included in the comparison. Data from this column doesn’t produce any differences.

The ignored column is marked with Empty Icon on the heading and has muted text in all cells.

Both methods allow you to ignore data in the specific columns, but hidden columns are not present on the screen. While the ignored ones are visible.