Introduction

ExcelCompare is a command line tool (coming soon API) to diff Excel / Open document (ods) (Open office, Libre office) spreadsheets.

It uses the Apache POI library to read Excel files. And the [OdfToolkit] (http://incubator.apache.org/odftoolkit) library to read Open document (ods) files.

This software is distributed under the MIT license.

Features / Limitations

• Identifies extra cells / sheets in addition to common cells.
• Prints all diffs & extra cells on stdout.
• Process exits with 0 if workbooks match, 1 otherwise.
• Works with xls, xlsx, xlsm, ods. You may compare any of these with each other.
• Compares only cell "contents". Formatting, macros are currently ignored.
• Using --ignore1 & --ignore2 (both optional) you may tell the diff to skip any number of sheets / rows / columns / cells.
• Other flags to control diffing (see below for description of these): --diff_numeric_precision, --diff_ignore_formulas.

Report bugs / issues / requests here

Installation

Prerequisites

• Requires Java 1.6 or higher.
• Assumes Java is added to PATH (to check open a cmd and run java -version)
• No other platform specific requirements
• A shell script and a bat script are packaged

Just download the zip file.

Extract it anywhere (and optionally you add the bin folder to PATH).

macOS

Homebrew makes it easy to install ExcelCompare:

$ brew update
$ brew install excel-compare

Usage

$ excel_cmp <diff-flags> <file1> <file2> [--ignore1 <sheet-ignore-spec> ..] [--ignore2 <sheet-ignore-spec> ..]

Notes:

• --ignore1 (file1) and --ignore2 (file2) are independent of each other
• Give one and only one <sheet-ignore-spec> per sheet
• File path is assumed relative to current directory unless full path is provided
• file1 and/or file2 can be '/dev/null' or '\.\NUL' (on windows) which is treated as empty file. This is useful for using ExcelCompare for git diff.

Diff flags

• --diff_numeric_precision: by default numbers are diffed with double precision, to change that specify this flag as --diff_numeric_precision=0.0001
• --diff_ignore_formulas: by default for cells with formula, formula is compared instead of the evaluated value. Use this flag to compare evaluated value instead

Sheet Ignore Spec

<sheet-name>:<row-ignore-spec>:<column-ignore-spec>:<cell-ignore-spec>

• Leaving <sheet-name> blank corresponds to this spec applying to all sheets, for example ::A will ignore column A in all sheets
• To ignore whole sheet, just provide <sheet-name>
• Any cell satisfying any ignore spec in the sheet (row, col, or cell) will be ignored in diff
• You may provide only <cell-ignore-spec> as - <sheet-name>:::<cell-ignore-spec>

Row Ignore Spec

<comma sep list of row or row-range>

• Row numbers begin from 1
• Range of rows may be provide as: 1-10
• Rows and ranges may be mixed as: 1-10,12,20-30 etc.

Column Ignore Spec

<comma sep list of column or column-range>

• Similar to Row Ignore Spec
• Columns are letters starting with A

Cell Ignore Spec

<comma sep list of cell or cell-range>

• Similar to Row Ignore Spec
• Cells are in usual Excel notation A1 D10
• Range may be provided as A1-D10

Examples

• Diff all cells

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx
  

• Ignore Sheet1 in 1.xlsx

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx --ignore1 Sheet1
  

• Ignore Sheet1 in both

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx --ignore1 Sheet1 --ignore2 Sheet1
  

• Ignore column A in both

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx --ignore1 Sheet1::A --ignore2 Sheet1::A
  

• Ignore column A across all sheets in both

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx --ignore1 ::A --ignore2 ::A
  

• Ignore columns A,D and rows 1-5, 20-25

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx --ignore1 Sheet1:1-5,20-25:A,D --ignore2 Sheet1:1-5,20-25:A,D
  

• Ignore columns A,D and rows 1-5, 20-25 and cells F6,H8

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx --ignore1 Sheet1:1-5,20-25:A,D:F6,H8 --ignore2 Sheet1:1-5,20-25:A,D:F6,H8
  

• Ignore column A in Sheet1 and column B in Sheet2

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx --ignore1 Sheet1::A Sheet2::B --ignore2 Sheet1::A Sheet2::B
  

• Ignore cells A1-B10 in Sheet2 of both files

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx --ignore1 Sheet2:::A1-B10 --ignore2 Sheet2:::A1-B10
  

• Ignore column A in all sheets of both files

    excel_cmp 1.xlsx 2.xlsx --ignore1 ::A --ignore2 ::A
  

Output format

• Each diff or extra cell is reported per line as follows

    DIFF  Cell at      <Cell> => <Value1> v/s <Value2>
    EXTRA Cell in <WB> <Cell> => <Value>
  

• Then a summary

    ----------------- DIFF -------------------
    Sheets: [<Set of sheets with diffs>]
    Rows: [<Set of rows with diffs>]
    Cols: [<Set of columns with diffs>]
    ----------------- EXTRA WB1 -------------------
    Sheets: [<Set of extra sheets in WB1>]
    Rows: [<Set of extra rows in WB1>]
    Cols: [<Set of extra columns in WB1>]
    ----------------- EXTRA WB2 -------------------
    Sheets: [<Set of extra sheets in WB2>]
    Rows: [<Set of extra rows in WB2>]
    Cols: [<Set of extra columns in WB2>]
    -----------------------------------------
  

• Then one line

    Excel files <file1> and <file2> differ|match
  

Examples

• Diffs in cells and extra cells

> excel_cmp xxx.xlsx yyy.xlsx
DIFF  Cell at     Sheet1!A1 => 'a' v/s 'aa'
EXTRA Cell in WB1 Sheet1!B1 => 'cc'
DIFF  Cell at     Sheet1!D4 => '4.0' v/s '14.0'
EXTRA Cell in WB2 Sheet1!J10 => 'j'
EXTRA Cell in WB1 Sheet1!K11 => 'k'
EXTRA Cell in WB1 Sheet2!A1 => 'abc'
EXTRA Cell in WB2 Sheet3!A1 => 'haha'
----------------- DIFF -------------------
Sheets: [Sheet1]
Rows: [1, 4]
Cols: [A, D]
----------------- EXTRA WB1 -------------------
Sheets: [Sheet1, Sheet2]
Rows: [1, 11]
Cols: [B, K, A]
----------------- EXTRA WB2 -------------------
Sheets: [Sheet1, Sheet3]
Rows: [10, 1]
Cols: [J, A]
-----------------------------------------
Excel files xxx.xlsx and yyy.xlsx differ

• Only extra cells

excel_cmp xxx.xlsx yyy.xlsx --ignore1 Sheet1 --ignore2 Sheet1
EXTRA Cell in WB1 Sheet2!A1 => 'abc'
EXTRA Cell in WB2 Sheet3!A1 => 'haha'
----------------- DIFF -------------------
Sheets: []
Rows: []
Cols: []
----------------- EXTRA WB1 -------------------
Sheets: [Sheet2]
Rows: [1]
Cols: [A]
----------------- EXTRA WB2 -------------------
Sheets: [Sheet3]
Rows: [1]
Cols: [A]
-----------------------------------------
Excel files xxx.xlsx and yyy.xlsx differ

• No diff

excel_cmp xxx.xlsx yyy.xlsx --ignore1 Sheet1 Sheet2 Sheet3 --ignore2 Sheet1 Sheet2 Sheet3
----------------- DIFF -------------------
Sheets: []
Rows: []
Cols: []
----------------- EXTRA WB1 -------------------
Sheets: []
Rows: []
Cols: []
----------------- EXTRA WB2 -------------------
Sheets: []
Rows: []
Cols: []
-----------------------------------------
Excel files xxx.xlsx and yyy.xlsx match