Start with the defaults
Open Comparison options below the file selectors. A new project checks formula text and rich-text formatting, with no user numeric tolerance. Those are a good starting point when you want to see what changed before deciding what is expected.
Changing comparison settings means you need to run Compare again. Filtering the results is different: it narrows the displayed results from the existing run.
Numeric tolerance
Numeric tolerance is an absolute difference you are willing to accept. With 0.01 selected, 10 and 10.004 count as equal; 10 and 10.02 do not. It is not a percentage and does not mean “round both numbers to two decimal places.”
Available choices are No user tolerance, 0.0001, 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, and 1. Excel comparisons still allow for tiny floating-point storage noise with no user tolerance. For CSV/TSV, values are strings by default; a positive tolerance allows supported numeric strings to be compared numerically.
Use a tolerance you can justify for the report. A small difference in an average may be harmless; that same difference in a strict reconciliation may matter.
Compare formulas
Compare formulas checks the formula text saved in the workbook. Two cells can display the same answer and still contain different formulas. For example, =B8+B9 and =SUM(B8:B9) can both store 75.
Turn this off only when the formula itself is outside the scope of your check. Stored cell values are still compared. The app does not recalculate either workbook; save recalculated files in Excel first if that is what you need to test.
Compare rich-text formatting
This checks formatting inside a cell, such as the word “review” being bold in “Needs review.” Turning it off does not disable ordinary whole-cell font, fill, border, or number-format comparisons.
To ignore formatting as a whole, add a Formatting ignore rule. To inspect formatting without changing the comparison, use the Category filter in the results.
What the categories mean
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Content | Cell values and text. |
| Formula | Stored formula text. |
| Formatting | Fonts, fills, borders, alignment, number formats, rich text, and conditional-formatting definitions. |
| Layout | Row heights, column widths, hidden rows or columns, merged cells, panes, and worksheet views. |
| Links | Hyperlinks. |
| Images | Image and drawing changes supported by the workbook reader. |
| Structure | Worksheets, sheet visibility, date system, filters, data validation, and delimited table structure. |
| Margins, page setup, print options, headers, footers, and page breaks. |
These are checks on the saved workbook. The app is not an Excel calculation engine or an exact renderer of every Excel object.
Try it on the weekly reports
Download the practice files from the workbook options lesson. Compare the approved weekly report with the current one using default settings: six differences.
- Set Numeric tolerance to 0.01 and compare again: five differences. B2 changes from 4.000 to 4.004, so it falls within the tolerance. B3’s 120-to-127 change stays.
- Turn off Compare formulas and rerun: four differences. B4’s stored answer is the same, but its formula changed.
- Turn formulas back on. Try turning off Compare rich-text formatting: B5’s in-cell style change is omitted, but B6’s whole-cell border change is still checked.
- Restore both checkboxes before trying the timestamp exercise in Ignore expected changes.
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