Thanks Will. Here's a nice article and comments by readers of Beyond Compare (std: $30, pro: $50) (comments go back to 2006-2009)
http://www.CodingHorror.com/blog/archives/000454.htmlMS Word Files Diff:[ mhardy on April 1, 2007 9:18 AM ] I'm with Chris, my allegiance is with
ExamDiff Pro. As a standard text file / directory comparison tool they look very similar but ExamDiff Pro's extensions look like they edge out BC. My favorite is the Word extension. Rather than treating them as binary files, it pre-processes Word files and does a text compare so you can actually see what differs in the Word document. Pretty nice.
Convert Long Line of XML Text to Multi-Line:[ jack on October 3, 2007 12:13 PM ] use
pspad freeware editor to conver one line of xml and reformat it. this tool will make it multi line.
[ bob on February 4, 2008 12:00 PM ] check the
xml tidy extension on beyond compare (available from the beyond compare site).
It uses the xml tidy tool to normalise and indent xml in a standard way, so you can compare two files that are laid out in different ways
( My Comment: WeBuilder may be able to load xml or sql database files with long, non-terminating lines which, up to now wasn't happening. ) See This PostBC is Not For Software Engineers: [ JT on October 7, 2007 4:47 AM ] Beyond Compare is a great choice for casual users in need of a diff tool. The tool is not perfect, however, and may not be the best choice for Software Engineers.
XML Files Extension: [ bob on February 4, 2008 12:00 PM ] To the people wanting xml comparison - check the xml tidy extension on beyond compare (available from the beyond compare site).
It uses the xml tidy tool to normalise and indent xml in a standard way, so you can compare two files that are laid out in different ways, for example one on a single line, the other half indented.
Compare to Araxis Merge: [ see: Matt on June 13, 2008 2:54 PM ] For those comparing Araxis Merge and don't [consider] the price [to be] a problem, don't think, just buy Araxis merge. It's a better tool (I've used both extensively in coding and file maintenance efforts; multi-years each), from it's report generation capabilities (yes I know BC2 has it also, but is much more limited) to it's sophistication and accuracy of it's merge engine.
Araxis Merge
Feature Comparison Matrix Flash Drive & Ignore Replacements: [ Krishna Sethuraman on January 9, 2009 2:57 PM ] One great option with later versions of 2 and beyond is a portable (flash-drive) install. Combined with the personal licensing terms allowing one user to run it on any number of computers, means you can have it available anywhere with 'plug-and-diff' convenience.
The other great new feature in BC3 is the 'ignore replacements' feature. If you've changed a (or a few) strings to a different value in many places between two files, and want to check for other differences, you can right-click on difference text, choose 'replacement', and select 'ignore'. You get an immediate visual indication of differences other than the ones you know have been changed en masse. Helped me visualize one issue at work that could have been tedious to resolve otherwise.