It is often useful to have a permanent record of the changes (differences) between two source code or text files.

If you wish to access and make a backup copy of the differences reported by Florencesoft TextDiff, follow the below steps.

1. Click the Options button on the main part of the user interface.
2. In the bottom, left-hand corner make sure Delete temporary files on exit is unchecked.
3. After comparing two source code files, text files or Microsoft Word documents navigate to the directory C:\Users\YOUR-USER-NAME\AppData\Local\Florencesoft\TextDiff\1\temp\mmddYYYY\NUMBER\. Each comparison creates a folder with an integer number greater than the last one for the current date.
4. Copy all the files in this directory to a folder of your choice.
5. Click on the file TEMPORARYindex.html to open the difference report in your default Internet web browser.

You can compare text from inside Microsoft Word and Excel using our Office add-in called "Compare Text With Selection Diff Tool". It uses the same powerful text difference algorithm as our desktop application Florencesoft TextDiff, although it is more limited in its user-selectable options. The Office add-in has more constrained results windows as it runs inside Microsoft Word and Excel.

This Microsoft Office add-in can be obtained from Microsoft using the web page https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA103863850

Our desktop application Florencesoft TextDiff, which is available for download on this website, will also compare the text parts of Microsoft Word documents. It will not compare graphics or tables though. Florencesoft TextDiff is a desktop application, which runs outside of Microsoft Word. TextDiff can compare whole folders (directories) of text (.txt), Rich Text Format (.rtf) and Microsoft Office Word files (both .doc and .docx) against each other, just like the older Windows application WinDiff.

Our other software application Florencesoft DiffEngineX is a full-featured compare tool for Microsoft Excel spreadsheet xlsx and xls files and is available from our other website https://www.florencesoft.com

Note the Office add-in "Compare Text With Selection Diff Tool" will compare large blocks of text inside Microsoft Excel and report the individual word and character differences. DiffEngineX compares all the cells for differences and reports differences as a list of differing cells. DiffEngineX has an option to hide matching Excel rows, which is a powerful way to see all the differences at once.

Screenshots Of The Microsoft Office Add-In Compare Text With Selection Diff Tool:

One of TextDiff's most powerful features is its ability to omit unchanged text in its difference report. This allows you to see all the differences very quickly, with the option of adding a few unchanged lines on either side for context.

To see a few lines of unchanged text around each difference, select Show only identical paragraphs near differences. The Options dialog allows the user to specify the amount of Context. The default is set at four.

To hide all unchanged text, except for text moved up or down in the document, select Don't show identical, unmoved paragraphs.

To hide all unchanged text, including even lines of text moved about in the document, select Don't show any identical paragraphs.

We find TextDiff very useful when we write code and also to see how text documents have changed over time. Unlike most other diff text products, our software can leave out unchanged lines and paragraphs making it very easy to see just the differences. It can compare any type of text document, via copy-n-paste to its two text windows. It also supports drag-n-drop of plain text, rich text and Microsoft Word documents. Note that it will only compare the plain text part of RTF and Word documents.

After you have selected a pair of text files for comparison and pressed the Compare button or double-clicked an entry on the Compare Directories dialog, the differences will be displayed in either a pair of windows or a composite one.

A useful tip is that if you wish to increase the text size used to display the differences, press the Ctrl and + keys simultaneously.

To decrease the text size, press Ctrl and - simultaneously.

To return the text to its default size press Ctrl and 0 (numeric zero).

You can also right-click on the window and bring up a Print dialog.