Compare Excel spreadsheets for differences

The Compare Sheets tool is part of Ablebits Ultimate Suite for Excel that will help you quickly find and highlight differences between two Excel worksheets and tables. Compare Sheets can check your Excel lists for unique rows and differences in values, formulas, and cells formatting. The tool shows differences with fill, font, or border color.

Save changes and close all Excel workbooks except for those that you are going to compare. If your task is to compare sheets from one workbook, leave only this workbook open.

1. Click the Compare Sheets button on the Ablebits Data tab.
2. Select sheets or ranges you need to compare. Click Next.
3. Identify the type of sheets you are working with and choose the comparing mode.
4. If you choose NO KEY COLUMNS or BY KEY COLUMNS, select the matching option. Click Next.
5. If you selected the BY KEY COLUMNS comparing mode, choose the key columns for comparison. If your choice was NO KEY COLUMNS or CELL-BY-CELL, you skip this step and get straight to the next one.
6. Decide, whether you want to show differences in formulas or formatting, and if yes, tick the appropriate checkboxes.
7. Make up your mind about hidden and empty rows, uncheck the corresponding checkboxes if you don't want to ignore them.
8. Choose the way to mark the differences: with background color, bottom border, or font color.
9. If you want to identify the differences in a status column, check the appropriate option.
10. Select the colors that will be used to mark rows that exist only in sheet 1, only in sheet 2, and cells that are different in sheet 1 and sheet 2. Click Compare.

Please find a more detailed instruction here.

After you click Compare on the last step, your files are opened side by side in a special Review Differences mode. The cells are colored the way you've chosen. Each window has a vertical toolbar with several buttons. In the inactive sheet the toolbar is disabled and decolorized to make you more focused on the active worksheet.

Now you can review and merge all the found differences with the help of the toolbar. You can navigate between them, select and insert unique rows to the other worksheet, copy the selected different cells to the other worksheet, delete the differences, or remove all the difference marks from the selected cells.

Sure. Your sheets can be in the same workbook or in two different Excel files.

Unfortunately, the Compare Sheets can't compare two tables in the same sheet. In this case, please use another tool included in our Ultimate Suite that can find matches and differences in any two sets of data in Excel, no matter their location. For more information, please see Compare Tables for Excel.

Yes. To find differences between two invoices, choose the NO KEY COLUMNS comparing mode. Bear in mind, that the add-in doesn't work with sheets that contain merged cells, so unmerge them before starting the comparison.

If you compare two price lists, choose the BY KEY COLUMNS comparing mode.

The add-in doesn't process sheets that contain merged cells, so please unmerge them before running the tool.

Yes, you can include formulas in comparison by ticking the Show difference in formulas checkbox on step 4. But please do not try to compare sheets that contain volatile functions, because every time Excel opens or recalculates the workbook, these functions return different values. The volatile functions are: NOW, TODAY, RAND, RANDBETWEEN, OFFSET, INDIRECT. Also, INFO and CELL can be volatile, but it depends on their arguments.

By default, we ignore hidden rows and columns, but if differences in hidden cells are important for you, you can uncheck the corresponding checkbox on step 4. But of course, you won't see the marking of differences in hidden rows unless you unhide them :)

Yes, empty rows and columns are ignored by default. If they are an important part of your dataset, just uncheck the corresponding checkbox.

The tool offers three ways to mark the found differences:

• background color
• bottom border
• font color

Besides, you can add a status column to identify the differences between your sheets.

For your convenience, the tool identifies unique rows in each sheet and cells that are different in partially matching rows. So, you've got three colors to show three types of data:

• rows that exist only in Sheet 1
• rows that exist only in Sheet 2
• cells that are different in Sheet 1 and Sheet 2

Yes, just tick the Add a status column checkbox on step 3.

It depends on the marking option you selected. The differences can be marked either by background color, bottom border, or font color. If there are no differences, the rows and cells won’t be colored anyhow.

When the comparison is done, the add-in opens the worksheets side by side in the Review Difference mode. The found different cells are marked the way you selected. If you used the default colors, you will see:

• Colored in blue are rows that are unique in Sheet 1 (on the left side).
• Colored in red are rows that are unique in sheet 2 (on the right side).
• Colored in green are cells that differ in partially matching rows.

Each sheet has a vertical toolbar with several buttons. In the inactive window, the toolbar is disabled and faded out so you get focused on the active worksheet.

In the Review Differences mode each sheet has a vertical toolbar. Using the toolbar buttons you can perform the following actions:

• Navigate between the found differences. When you go to the next or to the previous difference, the button selects whole rows that are unique in each sheet as well as cells that differ in partially matching rows.
• Insert the selected unique rows in the other worksheet.
• Copy the selected cells marked as different to the other worksheet.
• Delete the selected differences.
• Remove the difference marks from the selected cells.

When you have reviewed all the differences, the tool will ask if you want to get back to the normal Excel view. If you have made all the needed changes, click OK. If you want to exit the Review Differences mode before while some differences are still unprocessed, click the Exit Review Differences mode button at the bottom of the toolbar.

Compare Sheets creates backup copies of the Excel documents you are comparing because we care about the safety of your files. In case you made incorrect changes or removed important data, you can always find the copies of your original files in the folder you specified in the add-in's settings. By default, the backups are stored for 14 days.