Kaleidoscope by Black Pixel is a Mac app that’s dedicated to comparison—not only of text files (RTF, DOC, DOCX, and more), but also image files and the contents of folders. Comparing documents with Kaleidoscope couldn’t be easier: dragging the files that you want to compare to Kaleidoscope’s icon in the dock is enough to get started. Feb 09, 2016 From the app's splash screen 'SourceGear DiffMerge is an award-winning file diff and merge tool that has been helping professional developers and hobbyists since 2007. SourceGear DiffMerge is licensed for use free of charge. However, by registering DiffMerge you will help fund new product development, maintenance, and support.
The file comparison tools on this page are useful in a few ways. Firstly, they can tell you whether 2 files have identicalcontent or not. Secondly, they can also be used to pinpoint the exact differences between 2 files (especially ifthey are plain text files). Thirdly, for programmers, they can be used to create patch files that can beused to update one of those files to the other (useful for sending small updates to your end users withoutrequiring them to re-download everything).
Note for non-programmers: since you're probably just looking for something to tell you if 2 files arethe same, or to tell you the differences between 2 text files, just ignore any software below where I say thatthe tool is a binary diff or patch tool (ie, stuff like bsdiff and xdelta). Those are mostly meant for programmers.Also note that not all the utilities listed have a visual interface; some of them require you to use thecommand line, so if you're not comfortable with that, get a different one. (As far as possible, I've triedto note in my mini-review below if a particular program is command line based to make it easier for you,but if I miss something, and you find the program doesn't have a window for you to click on, just downloada different program. They're all free, after all.)
Related Pages
Free File Comparison Utilities (diff tools)
Windiff
This is a free diff program that compares two text files (including Unicode ones) and displays the resultsside by side with the differences highlighted. This is a Windows .NET program.
The command line utility bsdiff looks for differences between two binary files (that is, files that are not plain text files)and creates a patch that can be used by bspatch to change (or update) one of the binary files to the other.Such binary diff tools (as they are called) are often used by software developers to deliver updated versionsof their software to their users without requiring their users to download everything all over again, just toupgrade to a new version. (They are also used for things likeversion control software.)In any case, bsdiff is known for its ability to create very small patch files. The program works on numeroussystems, including Linux, the BSDfamily, Windows and probably others. Source code is available.
WinMerge is a Windows file differencing and merging tool. It has a Windows frontend overthe GNU diff and merge utilities. It includes Visual SourceSafe integration, visual differencingof text files, the ability to diff entire directories, multiple level undos, an integratededitor,
xdelta is a command line tool that allows you to make binary diffs of two binary files. Actually, xdelta is apparently morethan that - it is, according to their web page, 'a complete system for managing delta-compressed storage and network transport'.The latest version supports VDIFF / RFC 3284 encoding and decoding.
This is a Java version of xdelta, a program that can make binary diffs oftwo files.
Diff On Mac
If you need to compare two text files and get a report of which lines have changed, theGNU command line diff utilities can show you those differences. It is a standard part ofUnix-type systems (like Linuxand FreeBSD, etc),but if you have an operating system that does not come with a usefulfile or text comparison utility, you can get the source code for the program here. Note thatthe utilities are command line based, and come only in source form, so you have to compile them yourself.
KDiff3 compares two or three text files and shows the differences between them line byline and even character by character. It also has a merge capability, an integrated editorand the ability to diff/merge directories as well. KDiff3 works on Unix systems likeLinux as well as Windows.
xxdiff is a graphical file and directory comparison and merging tool. You can compare two orthree files with the differences highlighted. You can also compare two directories (usefulif you are trying to synchronise two directories/disks). It also has the ability to mergefiles, unmerge CVS conflicts into two separate files so that you can resolve the conflicts,etc. It uses an external diff program that is compatible with GNU diff (presumably in itsinterface). xxdiff is released under the GNU GPL and runs on IRIX, Linux, HP/UX, and DEC Tru64.
ExamDiff shows you the difference between two ASCII text files (Unicode not supported) by displaying the two filesside by side with the changes in different colours. You can configure the colours used.
DiffMerge allows you to visually compare and merge files by graphically showing you the differences between them. Intra-line highlighting of differencesis supported along with support for editing the files. You can also perform a side-by-side comparison of 2 folders; the folder diff facility will showyou the files that are only present in one folder as well as distinguish between those that are identical and those that are different. It's Merge facilityallows you to see the changes between 3 files, automatic merging when safe, and the ability to edit the resulting file. The programsupports international character encoding, and works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The Windows version features Windows Explorer integration.
Diffuse can compare an arbitrary number of files side by side. You can manually correct the output so that the matching lines arealigned as well as edit the files directly from the utility. It can retrieve files from a variety ofsource code version control management systemsincluding Bazaar, CVS, SVN, Darcs, Git, Mercurial, Monotone, etc, for comparison and merging. Other features include syntaxhighlighting, Unicode (UTF-8) support, unlimited undo, etc. The program requires that you havePython and PyGTK installed.
Best Free Diff Tool Mac
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Free Diff Tool Mac Os
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