Introduction

ExcelCompare is a command line tool (coming soon API) to diff Excel files.

It uses the Apache POI library to read Excel 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. You may compare an xls with xlsx too.
• 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.

Report bugs / issues / requests here

Installation

Prerequisites

• Requires Java 1.5 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).

Usage

$ excel_cmp <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

Sheet Ignore Spec

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

• Everything except <sheet-name> is optional
• 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 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