Even different revisions of the same document - if there are many changes due to additions, removals, or moving of content - may make comparisons of file changes very difficult to interpret. Additionally, text in one language cannot be compared to text in another, unless one is translated into the language of other.Ī critical consideration is how the two files being compared must be substantially similar and thus not radically different. Likewise, text cannot be compared to spoken words, unless the spoken words first are transcribed into text. Meaning, a text file cannot be compared to a picture containing text, unless an optical character reader (OCR) process is done first to extract the text. Note that comparisons must be made among the same file type.

or to validate a package of files is in compliance with standards before publishing. For instance, this might be to detect problems with corrupted backup versions of a collection of files. However, it also may include comparisons between two populations of files, such as in the case of comparing directories or folders, as part of file management. This category of software tool is often called 'file comparison' or 'diff tool', but those effectively are equivalent terms - where the term 'diff' is more commonly associated with the Unix diff utility.Ī typical rudimentary case is the comparison of one file against another.

The file types addressed by individual file comparison apps varies, but may include text, symbols, images, audio, or video.

This article compares computer software tools which are used for accomplishing comparisons of files of various types.

Notepad ++ compare files