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Can anyone recommend some good file compare software that is free and runs on Windows? What I'm mainly looking for is something that will show the differences between two files line-by-line (or even better, character differences) and allow selective merging of each difference to either file. Compare It and Araxis Merge does these, but they are paid programs. Is there anything out there like this that is free? Thanks.

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Hasn't this question been asked before? There seem to be countless questions about this subject. – alex Sep 18 '09 at 13:29
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You can find a complete list of file comparison software over on wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_comparison_tools – alex Sep 18 '09 at 13:33
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also: superuser.com/questions/34962/… – fretje Sep 18 '09 at 13:41
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Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! In the end, I decided to stick with the file compare function built into Notepad++. Even though it doesn't do everything I would prefer, it is convenient, as Notepad++ is my favorite text/source editor. – Jim Fell Nov 19 '09 at 14:46
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4 Answers

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Give WinMerge a spin; it does everything you are asking for.

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+1 Great program. – alex Sep 18 '09 at 13:31
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+1 WinMerge rules – Peter Lillevold Sep 18 '09 at 14:12
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Good program, I use it alot. – Jim C Sep 18 '09 at 15:08
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up vote 1 down vote

I would recommend Meld, but running it under Windows requires some tinkering with PyGTK. Please check this list of Meld alternatives :)

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up vote 0 down vote

You might try 'Beyond Compare'.

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Great program but it's not free (poster's requirement). – dwj Aug 5 '11 at 22:09
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I really like DiffMerge by SourceGear.

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