comparing excel files

[adri]

We have two versions of the same Excel workbook and need
to merge the two. These files are huge and comparing them
manually would take days. How can I compare the two files
to see what is different?

Windows 2000 5.00.2195 Service Pack 3
Excel 2002 (10.3506.3501) SP-1

Thanks!

 

[jeff]

Hi,

On July 6, Dave Peterson wrote this:

jeff
------------------------------------------------
It depends.

Myrna Larson and and Bill Manville wrote an addin that
compares two worksheets
on a cell-by-cell basis.

A1 is compared with A1. B99 to B99. If one of the users
inserted (or deleted)
rows (or columns), then this cell-by-cell comparison
breaks down.

Here's a link to the program (kept at Chip Pearson's
site):
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/whatsnew.htm
look for compare.xla

But if one of your consultants inserted a new row 1 (or
deleted column A), then
you'd find a bunch of changes right away.

 

[Dave Peterson]

And one more...

Someone once suggested this that might be useful.

Save each worksheet as a .CSV file. Then use a program that compares text files
(or even MSWord) to do the compare.

It might make things slightly easier.

I use a text editor called UltraEdit (www.ultraedit.com) and it can compare text
files nicely.

 

[Guest]

Does not work with protected work sheet. Missleading message: Did not find
any workseet! I would love to have this functionality but for different
files as well.
/Jusa

"Dave Peterson" skrev:

 

[Dave Peterson]

Compare.xla does require that the worksheets be unprotected--I'm guessing that
Myrna and Bill knew that you could hide the formulas in a locked cell on
protected sheet. So they built it into the code.

But it works fine with worksheets in different workbooks.