**Can Excel Compare Two Sheets And Highlight Differences?**

Can Excel Compare Two Sheets And Highlight Differences? Absolutely! Excel offers several built-in features and techniques to compare data between two worksheets and highlight any discrepancies, but for a comprehensive and user-friendly experience, COMPARE.EDU.VN provides in-depth comparisons and guides. This article delves into these methods, guiding you from simple side-by-side views to more advanced techniques involving conditional formatting, formulas, and third-party tools. By exploring these options, you can choose the best approach to identify disparities, reconcile datasets, and maintain data integrity in your workbooks. Let’s enhance data scrutiny, improve data accuracy, and boost data management.

1. Comparing Excel Files by Viewing Them Side by Side

If you’re working with smaller datasets and have a keen eye for detail, Excel’s “View Side by Side” mode can be a quick and effective way to compare two Excel files. This feature allows you to arrange two Excel windows next to each other, facilitating a visual comparison of the workbooks or sheets.

1.1. Comparing Two Excel Workbooks

Imagine you have monthly sales reports and want to see which products performed better each month. You can use the “View Side by Side” feature:

Open both workbooks you want to compare.
Go to the View tab, in the Window group, and click the View Side by Side button.

By default, the two Excel windows will be displayed horizontally.

To arrange Excel windows vertically, click Arrange All and select Vertical:

This will display the two separate Excel windows side by side, making it easier to compare the data.

To synchronize scrolling for a row-by-row comparison, ensure the Synchronous Scrolling option is turned on. You can find this option on the View tab, in the Window group, right under the View Side by Side button.

1.2. Arranging Multiple Excel Windows Side by Side

To compare more than two Excel files, open all the desired workbooks and click the View Side by Side button. The Compare Side by Side dialog box will appear, allowing you to select the files to be displayed with the active workbook.

To view all open Excel files simultaneously, click the Arrange All button on the View tab, in the Window group, and choose your preferred arrangement: tiled, horizontal, vertical, or cascade.

1.3. Comparing Two Sheets in the Same Workbook

Sometimes, the two sheets you want to compare are in the same workbook. To view them side by side:

Open the Excel file, go to the View tab > Window group, and click the New Window button.
This will open the same Excel file in a separate window.
Enable View Side by Side mode by clicking the corresponding button on the ribbon.
Select sheet 1 in the first window and sheet 2 in the second window.

2. How to Compare Two Excel Sheets for Differences in Values Using Formulas

One of the simplest methods to compare data in Excel is to use formulas to identify cells with different values. This results in a difference report in a new worksheet.

To compare two Excel worksheets for differences, open a new, empty sheet, enter the following formula in cell A1, and then copy it down and to the right by dragging the fill handle:

=IF(Sheet1!A1<>Sheet2!A1, "Sheet1:"&Sheet1!A1&" vs Sheet2:"&Sheet2!A1, "")

This formula uses relative cell references, which change based on the column and row position. Therefore, the formula in A1 compares cell A1 in Sheet1 and Sheet2, the formula in B1 compares cell B1 in both sheets, and so on. The result will look like this:

As shown in the screenshot, the formula identifies cells with different values and displays the differences in the corresponding cells. Be aware that dates may be displayed as serial numbers, which can be inconvenient for analyzing differences.

3. Highlighting Differences Between Two Sheets with Conditional Formatting

You can highlight cells with different values in two sheets using conditional formatting. Here’s how:

In the worksheet where you want to highlight differences, select all used cells. Click the upper left cell of the used range (usually A1) and press Ctrl + Shift + End to extend the selection to the last used cell.
On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting > New Rule, and create a rule with the following formula: =A1<>Sheet2!A1

Where Sheet2 is the name of the other sheet you are comparing.

This will highlight cells with different values in your chosen color:

If you’re unfamiliar with Excel conditional formatting, refer to this tutorial: Excel conditional formatting based on another cell value.

Although formulas and conditional formatting are simple, they have limitations:

They only find differences in values and cannot compare formulas or cell formatting.
They cannot identify added or deleted rows and columns. Adding or deleting a row/column in one sheet marks subsequent rows/columns as differences.
They work at the sheet level but cannot detect workbook-level structural differences like sheet additions and deletions.

4. Comparing and Merging Copies of a Shared Workbook

The Compare and Merge feature is useful for merging different versions of the same Excel file, especially when multiple users collaborate. Ensure the following preparations:

Share your Excel workbook before making it available to others. Click the Share Workbook button on the Review tab, in the Changes group, select the Allow Changes by More Than One User… box, and click OK. Allow Excel to save the workbook if prompted. Turning on the Track Changes feature shares the workbook automatically.
Each person editing the shared workbook must save a copy (.xls or .xlsx file) with a unique file name.

4.1. Enabling the Compare and Merge Workbooks Feature in Excel

The Compare and Merge Workbooks feature is available in Excel 2010 through Excel 365, but it isn’t displayed by default. To add it to the Quick Access toolbar:

Open the Quick Access drop-down menu and select More Commands.
In the Excel Options dialog box, select All Commands under Choose commands from.
In the list of commands, scroll down to Compare and Merge Workbooks, select it, and click the Add button.
Click OK.

4.2. Comparing and Merging Workbooks

When all users have finished working with the shared Excel workbook:

Open the primary version of the shared workbook.
Click the Compare and Merge Workbooks command on the Quick Access toolbar.
In the dialog box, select a copy of the shared workbook to merge. Hold the Shift key while clicking file names to select multiple copies, and then click OK.

This merges the changes from each copy into a single workbook.

4.3. Reviewing the Changes

To see all edits by different users at a glance:

Go to the Review tab > Changes group, and click Track Changes > Highlight Changes.
In the Highlight Changes dialog, select All in the When box, Everyone in the Who box, clear the Where box, select the Highlight changes on screen box, and click OK.

Excel highlights column letters and row numbers in dark red to point out rows and columns with differences. Cell-level edits from different users are marked with different colors. Hover over a cell to see who made a specific change.

Note: The Compare and Merge Workbooks feature only merges copies of the same shared workbook.

5. Third-Party Tools to Compare Excel Files

While Microsoft Excel offers several features to compare data, none of the built-in options comprehensively compare Excel sheets or entire workbooks, spotting all differences in values, formulas, or formatting.

If you require advanced and efficient ways to compare two Excel files, consider using third-party tools designed for comparing, updating, and merging Excel sheets and workbooks. Here are a few top performers in this area:

5.1. Synkronizer Excel Compare: A 3-in-1 Tool

The Synkronizer Excel Compare add-in quickly compares, merges, and updates two Excel files, saving you the trouble of searching for differences manually.

Useful features include:

Identifying differences between two Excel sheets.
Combining multiple Excel files into a single version without duplicates.
Highlighting differences in both sheets.
Showing only the relevant differences.
Merging and updating sheets.
Presenting detailed and easy-to-read difference reports.

5.1.1. Comparing Two Excel Files for Differences

Suppose you’re organizing an event and have two versions of an Excel table with participant information. Let’s see how efficiently Synkronizer can compare these sheets and identify differences:

Go to the Add-ins tab and click the Synkronizer 11 icon.

The Synkronizer pane will show up.

Select two workbooks to compare:

Select sheets to compare. If the selected workbooks have sheets with the same names, they will be matched and selected for comparison automatically:

You can also select worksheets manually or match sheets by other criteria, such as worksheet type (all, protected, or hidden).

Once you’ve selected the sheets, the Synkronizer add-in will open them side by side, arranged vertically or horizontally, similar to Excel’s View Side by Side mode.

Select one of the following comparison options:
- Compare as normal worksheets – the default option for most cases.
- Compare with link options – if the selected sheets do not contain any new or deleted rows and columns, you can compare them “1 on 1”.
- Compare as database – recommended for comparing sheets with a database structure.
- Compare selected ranges – define the ranges to be compared if you do not want to compare the entire sheets.
Choose the content types to be compared (optional). On the Select tab, in the Compare group, you can choose the content type(s) relevant to your current task:
- Under Content, you can select comments and names (in addition to cell values, formulas, and calculated values that are compared by default).
- Under Formats, you choose what cell formats such as alignment, fill, font, border etc.
- The Filters option lets you filter out differences that you don’t want to display. For example, you can ignore case, leading or trailing spaces, all formulas, different formulas with the same result, hidden rows or columns, and more.
Finally, click the big red Start button on the ribbon and proceed to examining the results.

5.1.2. Visualizing and Analyzing the Differences

Synkronizer typically takes only a few seconds to compare two sheets and present two summary reports on the Results tab:

A summary report shows all difference types at a glance: changes in columns, rows, cells, comments, formats, and names.
To view the detailed difference report, click a specific difference type on the summary report.

Clicking on a difference in the detailed report selects the corresponding cells on both sheets (the screenshot shows just one sheet):

You can create a difference report in a separate workbook, either standard or hyperlinked, and jump to a specific difference with a mouse click:

5.1.3. Comparing All Sheets in Two Workbooks at a Time

If the two Excel files you are comparing contain multiple sheets, all matching worksheet pairs will be presented in the summary report for your perusal:

5.1.4. Highlighting Differences Between Sheets

Synkronizer Excel Compare highlights all found differences by default:

Yellow – differences in cell values
Lilac – differences in cell formats
Green – inserted rows

To highlight only the relevant differences, click the Outline button on the Results tab and select the required options:

5.1.5. Updating and Merging Sheets

The merge function is one of the most useful features of the Synkronizer Excel Compare add-in. You can transfer individual cells or move different columns/rows from the source to the target sheet and have your primary sheet updated in seconds.

To update one or more differences, select them on the Synkronizer’s pane and click one of the four update buttons—the first and last buttons update all differences, while the 2nd and 3rd buttons update selected differences only (the button arrows indicate the transfer direction):

You can download an evaluation version here.

5.2. Ablebits Compare Sheets for Excel

The latest version of Ultimate Suite includes Compare Sheets, designed to compare worksheets in Excel.

The add-in is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly:

A step-by-step wizard guides you through the process and helps configure options.
You can choose the comparison algorithm best suited for your data sets.
Instead of a difference report, the compared sheets are displayed in the Review Differences mode so that you can view and manage all the differences at a glance.

To use the tool:

Click the Compare Sheets button on the Ablebits Data tab, in the Merge group.
The wizard will show up, asking you to select the two worksheets you want to compare. You can select the entire sheets, the current table

or a specific range:

On the next step, select the comparison algorithm:
- No key columns (default) – works best for sheet-based documents like invoices or contracts.
- By key columns – appropriate for column-organized sheets that have one or more unique identifiers such as order numbers or product IDs.
- Cell-by-cell – best used to compare spreadsheets with the same layout and size, like balance sheets or year-to-year reports.
- Tip: If you are unsure, use the default option (No key columns).

On the same step, you can choose the preferred match type:

First match (default) – compares a row in Sheet 1 to the first found row in Sheet 2 that has at least one matching cell.
Best match – compares a row in Sheet 1 to the row in Sheet 2 that has the maximum number of matching cells.
Full match only – finds rows in both sheets that have exactly the same values in all cells and marks all other rows as different.

Specify which differences to highlight and ignore, and how to mark them.
Click the Compare button.

5.2.1. Reviewing and Merging Differences

Once the worksheets are processed, they are opened side-by-side in a special Review Differences mode, with the first difference selected:

The differences are highlighted with default colors:

Blue rows – rows that exist only in Sheet 1 (on the left).
Red rows – rows that exist only in Sheet 2 (on the right).
Green cells – difference cells in partially matching rows.

Each worksheet has its own vertical toolbar to help you review and manage the differences.

Use this toolbar to go through the differences one-by-one and decide whether to merge or ignore them:

Once the last difference is dealt with, you will be prompted to save the workbooks and exit the Review differences mode.

You can download an evaluation version here.

5.3. xlCompare: Compare and Merge Workbooks, Sheets, and VBA Projects

The xlCompare utility allows you to compare two Excel files, worksheets, names, and VBA Projects. It identifies added, deleted, and changed data and allows you to quickly merge differences. Additional options include:

Finding and removing duplicate records between two worksheets.
Updating all existing records in one sheet with values from another sheet.
Adding unique (new) rows and columns from one sheet to another.
Merging all updated records from one workbook to another.
Sorting data on the sheets by the key column.
Filtering the comparison results to display differences or identical records.
Highlighting comparison results with colors.

5.4. Change Pro for Excel: Compare Excel Sheets on Desktop and Mobile Devices

With Change pro for Excel, you can compare two sheets in desktop Excel and on mobile devices with optional server-based comparison. Key features include:

Finding differences between two sheets in formulas and values.
Identifying layout changes, including added/deleted rows and columns.
Recognizing embedded objects such as charts, graphs, and images.
Creating and printing difference reports of formula, value, and layout differences.
Filtering, sorting, and searching the difference report on key changes.
Comparing files directly from Outlook or document management systems.
Supporting all languages, including multi-byte.

6. Online Services to Compare Excel Files

Besides desktop tools, several online services let you quickly compare two Excel sheets for differences without installing any software. While security may be a concern, these services can be useful for Excel files without sensitive information.

Services like XLComparator or CloudyExcel allow you to upload two Excel workbooks and find differences. This is how the CloudyExcel service looks:

You simply upload the files and click the Find Difference button. The differences in the active sheets will be highlighted with different colors:

7. FAQ: Comparing Excel Sheets

1. Can Excel highlight differences between two sheets automatically?

Yes, Excel can automatically highlight differences between two sheets using conditional formatting. You can set up a rule that compares cell values in two sheets and highlights the cells with differences.

2. How can I compare two Excel files without installing any software?

You can use online services such as XLComparator or CloudyExcel to compare two Excel files without installing any software. These services allow you to upload your files and highlight the differences.

3. Is it possible to compare formulas in two Excel sheets?

Yes, third-party tools like Synkronizer Excel Compare and xlCompare can compare formulas in two Excel sheets, identifying any discrepancies.

4. Can I compare and merge different versions of the same Excel file?

Yes, Excel’s Compare and Merge feature allows you to merge different versions of the same shared workbook, making it easier to consolidate changes from multiple users.

5. What is the best way to compare two Excel sheets for added or deleted rows and columns?

Third-party tools such as Ablebits Compare Sheets and Change pro for Excel are designed to identify added or deleted rows and columns when comparing two Excel sheets.

6. How do I compare two sheets in the same Excel workbook?

Open the Excel file, go to the View tab > Window group, and click the New Window button. This will open the same Excel file in a separate window. Enable View Side by Side mode by clicking the corresponding button on the ribbon, then select the sheets to compare.

7. Can conditional formatting compare two sheets in Excel?

Yes, you can use conditional formatting to compare two sheets by creating a rule that highlights cells with different values based on the content of corresponding cells in another sheet.

8. Are there any limitations to using Excel’s built-in features for comparing sheets?

Excel’s built-in features have limitations such as not being able to compare formulas, cell formatting, or identify added/deleted rows and columns effectively.

9. What should I consider when choosing a third-party tool for comparing Excel files?

Consider factors such as the ability to compare formulas, cell formatting, identify structural differences, ease of use, and the need for advanced features like merging and updating sheets.

10. How can I ensure data accuracy when comparing and merging Excel sheets?

Use reliable tools, carefully review the highlighted differences, and consider making backup copies before merging any changes. Also, regularly validate the merged data to ensure accuracy.

Conclusion

Comparing two Excel sheets for differences can be accomplished through various methods, from simple side-by-side viewing and formulas to advanced conditional formatting and third-party tools. By choosing the right technique, you can efficiently identify discrepancies, reconcile datasets, and maintain data integrity in your Excel workbooks. For a more in-depth exploration of comparison methods and to discover which tools are best suited for your needs, visit COMPARE.EDU.VN.

If you need help deciding on the best tool or method for your specific needs, COMPARE.EDU.VN provides detailed comparisons and reviews. Don’t struggle with complex spreadsheets alone; let us help you make informed decisions!

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Can Excel Compare Two Sheets And Highlight Differences?