# software to compare 2 text files?
**URL:** https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189
**Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic
**Created:** [April 6, 2007, 8:47am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189 "2007-04-06T08:47:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Dr.Stevil](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Dr.Stevil)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2007, 8:47am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/1 "2007-04-06T08:47:33Z")
anyone know of any? I’m trying to compare 2 large text files against each other (licence files) to find out the differences between them (one has a switch on that the other doesn’t and going thru hundreds of lines doesn’t sound very appealing)
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### Author:  [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2007, 8:50am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/2 "2007-04-06T08:50:15Z")
u know c++?
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### Author:  [@Dr.Stevil](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Dr.Stevil)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2007, 9:00am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/3 "2007-04-06T09:00:20Z")
[quote=“boardjnky4,post:2,topic:27189"”]
u know c++?
[/quote]
unfortunitly no
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### Author:  [@SilverGTP](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/SilverGTP)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2007, 9:11am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/4 "2007-04-06T09:11:44Z")
can’t you do that in access?
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### Author:  [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2007, 9:22am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/5 "2007-04-06T09:22:08Z")
I’ve heard of one. It’s this obscure little program called Microsoft Word.
Tools -\> Compare & Merge Documents
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### Author:  [@dmoffitt](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/dmoffitt)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2007, 9:25am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/6 "2007-04-06T09:25:35Z")
textmate?
SVN?
google? [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=diff+two+files&spell=1](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=diff+two+files&spell=1)
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### Author:  [@brent\_strong](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/brent_strong)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2007, 9:28am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/7 "2007-04-06T09:28:19Z")
Unix/Linux
diff file1 file2
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### Author:  [@Dr.Stevil](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Dr.Stevil)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2007, 10:05am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/8 "2007-04-06T10:05:30Z")
heh… never knew that about word.
thanks for the responses
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### Author:  [@neonglh](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/neonglh)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2007, 6:22am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/9 "2007-04-07T06:22:43Z")
BBedit can do it as well. I do it all the time for comparing php files for changes.
–mark
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### Author:  [@johns](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/johns)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2007, 5:44pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/10 "2007-04-07T17:44:33Z")
windiff or winmerge
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### Author:  [@jimmyfloyd](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/jimmyfloyd)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2007, 5:53pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/software-to-compare-2-text-files/27189/11 "2007-04-07T17:53:32Z")
ultra edit has a nice feature for this.