Location pane showing map of files compared.

Visual differencing and merging of text files.

Over time WinMerge has added many features to make it easy to compare files and folders. It is here where WinMerge excels in understanding the differences and merging changes as appropriate.

Especially true for IT professionals, as working with configuration files can lead to issues if making the wrong change. There are many times that understanding the differences between a set of files or folders is critical to making sure that just the right operations are done. (Prior to WinMerge v2.WinMerge is an exceptionally useful and open source differencing and merging tool for Windows. If your FTP program mangles your files by changing line-endings, you'll want to tell WinMerge to ignore carriage return differences.Ĭhoose Tools | Filters | Linefilters tab and check the 'Ignore lines.' box, and enter this: Preventing it from flagging line-endings as changes Edit as described above for individual file diff's. To look at diff's in displayed files, double-click or press Enter on a highlighted entry. You can optionally enable/disable left/right comparison results too. Under the 'View' menu, deselect 'Identical Files'. You'll see a list of files after comparison. BE SURE TO CHECK THE 'Recursive' CHECKBOX so that it knows to compare files in subdirectories too. To compare entire folders, do the same as for files above, but only enter folder names (or drag-and-drop). Probably best to *not* choose 'Show Identical Items' because if the files are identical, you don't need to review them. When comparing, if you see only left-side or right-side files, click on the 'View' menu and choose 'Show Different Items'. If you've made any changes, you'll be prompted to save them, for both files (if relevant).

There are arrow buttons in the navigation bar to allow you to move down and up thru known differences, and left/right to copy text from one to the other.ĮSC exits. The 2nd file you drag onto WinMerge needs to be dragged onto the 2nd filename box.Ĭlick OK, and the files' contents will be compared, with differences highlighted. Or, drag-and-drop files from an explorer window onto the WinMerge window. To compare files press CTRL-O (File | Open) and choose the desired individual files to compare. You can install WinMerge by downloading the latest version from their website at:

Winmerge compare pdf files