How to compare two sheets?

There are many different cases in which Excel users work with updates of the same data files, e.g.:

Data updates from external customers or colleagues
Data updates from internal/external data bases

In these cases, the structure of the data mainly remains the same, but values might be updated or entire columns/rows might be added / deleted.

The Data Quality Assistant allows to quickly compare different versions of data sheets. The user just needs to click on the “Compare” tab.

The user can decide between comparing two different sheets (“Sheets”) and two entire workbooks ("Workbooks").

When comparing two different sheets, the user selects the base sheet ("Original sheet") and the sheet that should be compared ("New sheet"). After clicking on compare, a new window opens showing all differences between the two sheets.

Note: It is also possible to compare two sheets from different workbooks. Just select “From other workbook” when selecting the “New sheet”.

The Compare function applies a color code to show adjusted cells and rows/columns:

Red color: information of the "Original sheet"
Green color: information of the "New sheet"

On top left of the screen, some general information is given. In the example above:

10 cells have been changed
2 rows have been changed
0 columns have been changed or reordered

When clicking on “Hide unchanged rows” and "Hide unchanged columns", only the changes are shown.

When clicking on the "Calculate differences" button, all differences are automatically calculated for numerical values:

By clicking on “Export changes”, a changelog on a new Excel sheet is included in the Excel workbook (exporting the current view of the Compare window):