Guides

Practical answers to common comparison questions.

• How to read a diffWhat the +, −, @@ and context lines in a diff or patch mean, with annotated examples of unified, side-by-side and word-level diffs.
• How to compare two lists and find the differencesFind which items are in one list but not the other: sort, remove duplicates and ignore case, then compare. Works for emails, IDs, SKUs and any line-based list.
• How to ignore whitespace in a diffIgnore indentation, trailing spaces, line endings and blank lines when comparing files, with git diff -w, -b, diff options and an online diff checker.
• How to compare two versions of a contractFind every change between two versions of a contract or legal document, even without tracked changes: compare PDFs or Word files as a redline, privately in your browser.