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How to compare two Excel files, with or without the tool

The usual answer to how to compare two excel files is a Microsoft tool called Spreadsheet Compare. It is a good tool. It is also unavailable to most of the people who go looking for it, and Microsoft says so in a box marked Important that the articles recommending it leave out.

Microsoft marks this Important

“Spreadsheet Compare is available only in Excel for Windows in Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise plans and equivalent editions.”

Read 22 August 2026. Every article that answers this question by naming Spreadsheet Compare is right about the tool and wrong about most of its readers. A personal subscription does not have it. A business subscription below the enterprise plans does not have it. A Mac does not have it. That is a large majority of the people asking, and it is why the rest of the results for this question are companies selling comparison tools.

If you do have it

It is genuinely good, and worth using properly rather than glancing at.

  1. On the Ribbon, select Inquire › Compare Files. No Inquire tab? It is an add-in that has to be turned on first.
  2. Choose the two files. Microsoft’s note: “You can compare two files with the same name if they’re saved in different folders” — which is exactly the situation people are usually in.
  3. Results come as a two-pane grid: the left pane is the Compare file, the right the To file, with the detail underneath.
  4. Differences are coloured by type. “The lower-left pane is a legend that shows what the colors mean” — read it before drawing conclusions, because green means an entered value rather than a formula.
  5. Home › Export Results saves the comparison as an Excel file, and Copy Results to Clipboard puts it into anything else.

One behaviour worth knowing before you rely on the result: “If a worksheet is hidden in a workbook, it’s still shown and compared in Spreadsheet Compare.” Hidden sheets are included — which is usually what you wanted, and occasionally a surprise.

If you do not, and most people do not

You do not need a tool to find differences between two sheets. You need one column. Put the two files’ sheets into one workbook, or open both, and in an empty column beside the first one write:

=IF(A2=[Book2]Sheet1!A2, "", "changed")

Fill it down and across the width of your data. Every cell that differs says so, everything else stays blank, and you can filter the column to see only the changes. It is a list rather than a picture, which for a long sheet is the more useful form — you can sort it, count it, and send it to somebody.

Two cautions, and they are the same two that catch the paid tools. The rows must line up. If one file has an extra row near the top, every comparison below it is offset and everything reads as changed — sort both by the same key first. And this compares values, not formulas: a cell that now gets its number a different way looks identical while being a genuinely important change.

The question underneath all of this is what “different” means to you, and it is worth deciding before you start. Two files can differ in their values, in their formulas, in their formatting, in which rows exist at all, or simply in the order things are listed. A tool that highlights every one of those will bury the change you cared about among four hundred you did not. The one-column method above is narrow on purpose: it answers one question, and you can widen it deliberately.

If what changed is rows rather than cells, comparison is the wrong shape of question. What you want is a lookup — for each reference in the new file, is it present in the old one? — and the answer comes back as a list of arrivals and departures rather than a grid of colours. It is a different job from cell-by-cell comparison and much easier to explain to somebody else afterwards.

And before any of it, the boring step that saves the afternoon: make a copy of both files. Comparison work involves sorting, inserting helper columns and deleting them again, and the file you are investigating is often the one that matters. Nothing on this page needs to be done to the originals.

The availability limit, the Inquire route, the two-pane results, the legend, the note about hidden worksheets and the export options are quoted from Microsoft’s own documentation, read on 22 August 2026 and listed below. The one-column method and the two cautions attached to it are ours.

Where to start

Four ways in.

“Somebody changed something.”
One column tells you what — the method that always works
“I have the enterprise version.”
Use the tool properly — if you have the tool
“Rows were added or removed.”
That is a lookup, not a comparison — when rows changed
“Which cells are formulas?”
A separate question — what different means

The method that always works

One helper column, any version of Excel, and a result you can filter, count and send on.

Removing duplicates in ExcelThree tools and only one deletes, and what Excel actually counts as a duplicate.Open this floor → Sorting alphabeticallyOne word in Microsoft’s first step keeps your rows together.Open this floor → Wrapping text in ExcelTwo ways to break a line in a cell, and the two documented reasons the wrapped text stays invisible.Open this floor →

If you have the tool

Spreadsheet Compare is good, and its results reward reading the legend before drawing conclusions.

Lock cells in ExcelEvery cell is already locked, so the real job is unlocking the ones people should edit.Open this floor → Track changesThe same question in Word, and the setting that decides whether it can be turned off.Open this floor → Freezing rows in ExcelOne rule from Microsoft explains every case.Open this floor →

When rows changed

Arrivals and departures are a lookup rather than a comparison, and the answer is easier to explain.

Drop-down lists in ExcelPut the source in a table so it updates itself, and the option that decides whether the list is enforced.Open this floor → Checkboxes in ExcelHere the box is the cell’s value, so the ticks can be counted.Open this floor → Mail merge in WordFive things Microsoft asks of the spreadsheet before you start.Open this floor →

What different means

Values, formulas, formatting, order, existence. Deciding which you care about is most of the work.

PDF to ExcelWhat survives the conversion, and the numbers that arrive as text.Open this floor → Percentages in ExcelThe formulas are the easy half. The format changes the number, and depends on when you apply it.Open this floor →
Spreadsheets as softwareThe point at which a spreadsheet has quietly become an application.Being built

What this tower will not do

It will not recommend Spreadsheet Compare without saying who can use it. Microsoft restricts it to Windows and enterprise plans, and marks that Important.

It will not send you to a comparison website first. One helper column does the job in any version of Excel, without the file leaving your machine.

And it will not pretend a comparison answers a question you have not decided on. Different in what way is the first thing to settle. What holds instead is simple: the availability limit, the Inquire route and the behaviour of the results are quoted from Microsoft’s own documentation, with the date it was read.

Where this page got its facts

  1. Microsoft Support — Compare two versions of a workbook by using Spreadsheet Compare, including the note that it is available only in Excel for Windows on Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise plans, the Inquire route, the two-pane results and legend, the treatment of hidden worksheets and the export options — support.microsoft.com, read 22 August 2026.

Written by Alberto Gulotta

Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the about page.

Something wrong on this page? Write to aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.

Written on 22 August 2026.

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