WinMerge — The Complete Guide: Free Comparison of Files, Folders and Tables Between Revisions
WinMerge is an open-source compare and merge tool for Windows. It shows exactly what changed between two versions of a file or folder — a question that comes up every day in an engineering office: what is different in the model input file since yesterday, which table was updated, and what was replaced in the submission folder.
WinMerge
WinMerge team
Compare and merge files, folders, tables and images on Windows — see what changed between revisions.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Text comparison — line by line with highlighted changes, including three-way comparison.
- Folder comparison — including subfolders, with filters by file type.
- Tables — CSV and TSV files are shown and compared as tables.
- Images — the areas that changed between two images are highlighted.
- Merging — copy changes from one side to the other.
Practical uses
Before re-running a model, compare the new input file with the old one and make sure only the loads you meant to change were changed. At the end of a project, compare the submission folder with the working folder to make sure no file was left out. The tool runs on Windows only; on Linux there are Meld and KDiff3.
Related tools
For version control of scripts and input files — Git. To edit the files themselves — Notepad++. To compare PDF files — diff-pdf.
Meld
GNOME / Meld project
Visual two- and three-way diff and merge for files and folders, with Git and version-control support.
Get it from the vendor
KDiff3
KDE
Compare and merge two or three files or folders — to reconcile changes to scripts, input files and configs.
Get it from the vendor
Git
Git project
Version control for code, scripts and input files — who changed what and when, and return to any version.
Get it from the vendordiff-pdf
Vaclav Slavik
Visual comparison of two PDF versions — see at once what changed between revisions of a drawing or report.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
WinMerge is a small free tool that prevents mistakes: instead of guessing what changed, you see it highlighted.