When we talk about the programs that we use most frequently on our Windows-based computers, these are several. It should be taken into account that applications such as Excel, Chrome, Word or Photoshop are generally used much more widely than other proposals on the market.
Just as Windows 10 is the most used operating system in the world for desktop PCs, we could say that Word is it for office automation. Something similar happens, if we focus on photo retouching, with Photoshop or GIMP . We tell you all this because along these lines we are going to focus on other software that is widely used in computers of all types and formats. Specifically, we refer to Excel, the spreadsheet program that is offered within Microsoft‘s Office suite.
Excel functions that make it easier for us to work with numbers
This is a proposal that is used in many environments, both professional and more domestic. As perhaps most of you already know, this software solution focuses on working with numerical data. For all this, we find a series of tables with innumerable cells in which we can enter the data and numbers with which to operate. We also have access to a good number of formulas and functions that will greatly facilitate this type of task that we are commenting on.
Although at first the user interface we are talking about may seem somewhat confusing, it is actually more than effective. We tell you this because its cell-based design allows us to handle numbers, formulas and results in a much more effective way. At the same time, these are fully customizable, both in terms of appearance, content and type. That is why we can also adapt them to work with other types of data and elements. Here we refer to texts, graphics, images , individual tables, etc.
But how could it be otherwise, we also have to manage to try to work in the most effective way possible with this program. Sometimes we deal with huge tables filled with numerical data, which can be a bit tricky at times. That is why in these same lines we are going to try to make things much easier when comparing two Excel tables .
Compare two Excels with ExcelMerge program
Well, as it has surely happened to you on more than one occasion, it may be the case that on certain occasions we have found the need to compare Excel . By this we mean comparing two files or tables that we have created in the Microsoft program to find out their differences. This is a task that, if the tables we are talking about have a large amount of data, it can be quite complicated. However, below we are going to show a way to compare two files or tables more easily.
In this way, what we are really going to achieve is that Excel itself and mark us its differences in order to facilitate our work and be faster. Therefore, let’s see the steps to follow to compare two Excel tables and see their differences more immediately. To say first that for this we are going to use a free software called ExcelMerge that we can download from this link .
At this point, it is worth mentioning that it is a free application that has been developed to compare two Excels and mark their differences. Say that ExcelMerge offers us the option to see all the data of both elements with the corresponding marked differences. In the same way, we will have the possibility to see the data that are different between both tables or files if this is more efficient for us. In parallel, it offers some very interesting customization options for these tasks. Serve as an example that at the same time we can choose which color we want to highlight the differences found, or copy the data in CSV format.
Startup of ExcelMerge to compare two tables in Excel
In order to get the most out of this program that we are discussing and thus be able to compare two Excel with ExcelMerge, the first thing we do is download the application. This, as we mentioned before, we find it on the Github development platform, so it is an open source application. Once we have the ExcelMerge interface open and on the screen, we just have to add the Excel that we want to compare. It is worth mentioning that the program as such has support for working with files in XLS, XLSX, CSV and TSV formats.
Well, once we have both files loaded into the program itself, we can select the sheets of each Excel that we want to compare. We must also bear in mind that to load both Excel files, we just have to drag them to the program interface. Of course, we place each of them in one of the two panels into which it is divided. Once loaded, click on the Extract Diff button to start the process to compare two Excel tables.
Then it will show us on the screen the data corresponding to the file on the left side in that panel, and the same will happen with the one loaded on the right. In the same way, the program itself will show us the differences, these are marked in orange so that we can see them at a glance. At the same time, you have to know that if we prefer to see only the differences instead of everything, we can mark the Only Dif option in Display Format.
Customize the program when comparing Excel tables
It is also interesting to know that all this data collected here can also be exported to a CSV or TSV file. This will help us to have a specific file with the differences found when comparing two Excels. As we mentioned before, the application has some functions that we can customize. This will help us to adapt ExcelMerge a little more to our needs of the moment.
Say that the customization options can be found in the Setting / General Setting menu . This will lead us to another window where we can change some parameters. Among these we can highlight the possibility of changing the colors used by default, the rows and columns to be displayed, their sizes, what to do with the empty ones, etc.