How smart is Compare Files aka Spreadsheet Compare?

[bgx vsp]

I found out about the Compare Files is a feature in Pro Plus:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/compare-two-versions-of-a-workbook-by-using-spreadsheet-com...

I don't currently have access to it, but I'm wondering whether it's at least as smart as a basic text diffing tool in tolerating offsets.

Concretely, if I insert or delete a row (or column) in one of the sheets, will it highlight just that row/column as the difference, or will it highlight everything after it as well?

If it's smart enough to tolerate row/column shifts, can it do this on a per-table basis (as it's common for a worksheet to contain multiple tables)?  For instance, if I have two tables side by side, and I insert a row into only one of them, will this highlight all the rows below that inserted row in either one of the tables?

Thanks!

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

It depends on options, but in general it shows both. Entire picture looks like this

Range on the left is actually the table.

[#3]

This tool is nice to have.  It will even track changes to VBA.  If you are trying to compare worksheet changes you may also benefit from using the FORMULATEXT() Function in conjunction with an IF() statement.  This can help you compare different formulas from one version of a workbook to another to manually see where formula changes have occurred.....

=IF(FORMULATEXT(Sheet1!A1)=FORMULATEXT(Sheet2!A1), "", "Different Formula")