Notepad++ has a plugin installer built into it now. If you want to compare two Excel worksheets please see my previous article on this subject which explains about using an add-on for Excel to compare files inside Excel: Of course this can be used to compare all kinds of data such as log files, programming code or maybe CSV data files, etc. It's also easy to use especially if you are already using Notepad++ for other work. It's very fast, even with very large files. You can see some text is missing from one line in file2.txt. I clicked and it took me to where the difference was.

After running the Compare I saw in the Nav Bar that there were two lines (see the orange arrow in the image above) indicating two differences. In the above I was comparing large files. You'll see something similar to the following: Let's say for example we have two text files - here's what to do:Ĭlick Plugins | Compare | Compare (or press Alt-D) Start Notepad++ and now on the Plugins menu you can find the Compare option. The download file is a zip, open it and extract the DLL inside. Normally the above is fine but in the past and possibly if you are troubleshooting, the following manual installation method might be useful:ĭownload the Compare plug-in for Notepad++ Now on the Plugins menu you'll see the Compare option. Install Notepad++ if it's not already installed.Ĭheck in Notepad++ that the Compare plugin is installedĬlick Compare in the list and click Install Notepad++ is a very useful free text editor and you can easily add a free plug-in called 'Compare' to add this functionality: Often you may need to compare two text files to see the differences.

Notepad ++ compare files