Altova DiffDog 2025 Professional Edition

Diff and Merge

The Diff and Merge Menu lists commands to manage file and directory comparisons. Depending on the active comparison window, commands to set the comparison mode, navigate compared documents in the comparison windows and merge differences in them are also available in this menu.

Please note that the content of the Diff and Merge menu changes dynamically, depending on the type of comparison.

Diff and Merge general settings

This subsection describes general commands available in the Diff and Merge menu. To find out more about commands specific to comparison types, see Directory Comparison Commands.

Compare as

The Textual Comparison Only ic_text command changes the comparison mode of a file or directory comparison to textual comparison. Note that this command is not available if the Quick Comparison mode is active. To change to the Text Comparison mode in that case, you have to deactivate the Quick Comparison mode first.

The Compare as XML ic_xml command changes the comparison mode of a file or directory comparison to XML comparison. Note that this command is not available if the Quick Comparison mode is active. To change to the XML Comparison mode in that case, you have to deactivate the Quick Comparison mode first.

The Compare as Binary ic_bin command changes the comparison mode of a file or directory comparison to binary comparison. Note that this command is not available if the Quick Comparison mode is active. To change to the Binary Comparison mode in that case, you have to deactivate the Quick Comparison mode first.

The Compare According to File Extension Settings ic_ext command changes the comparison mode of a file or directory comparison dynamically according to the settings on the File types tab of the DiffDog Options dialog box. Note that this command is not available if the Quick Comparison mode is active. To change to the File Extension mode in that case, you have to deactivate the Quick Comparison mode first.

Start comparison

The Start Comparison ic_start-comparison ( F5 ) command starts comparison for the active comparison window.

Next/last

The Next Difference ic_next-diff ( Alt+Down ) command selects the next difference as the current difference.

The Previous Difference ic_previous-diff ( Alt+Up ) command selects the previous difference as the current difference.

The Last Difference ic_last-diff ( Alt+End ) command selects the last difference as the current difference.

The First Difference ic_first-diff ( Alt+Home ) command selects the first difference as the current difference.

Current difference

The Display Current Difference ic_display-current-diff ( Ctrl+Enter ) command scrolls through the document to display the current difference.

The Make Current Difference ic_make-current-diff ( Alt+Enter ) command makes the selected difference the current difference, and sets it as the difference from which to navigate.

Copy

The Copy from Left to Right ic_copy-L2R ( Alt+Right ) command copies text of the selected difference from the document in the left pane to the document in the right pane.

The Copy from Right to Left ic_copy_R2L ( Alt+Left ) command copies text of the selected difference from the document in the right pane to the document in the left pane.

Other options

When the Show Options Before Comparison ic_show-options-before command is toggled on for a Comparison Window, the Comparison Options dialog box is displayed each time a comparison is made in that window. Note that the Comparison Options dialog box is not displayed before comparisons made dynamically by DiffDog while you edit a document.

When toggled on, the Autostart Comparison ic_autostart-comparison command automatically starts a comparison when both files or both directories are selected and opened in the comparison window. If this option is toggled off, then a comparison (file or directory) must be explicitly started (see the Start Comparison command above).

The Compare while Editing ic_compare-while-editing command is a toggle to compare or not compare documents in File Comparison windows while editing. If toggled on, differences are highlighted as you edit. If toggled off, highlighting of differences is turned off in both documents as soon as you start typing in either document; to highlight differences after editing, you must run a comparison (see the Start Comparison command above).

The Support Recently Compared Pairs command is a toggle that switches on and off the option of suggesting recently compared files or directories each time a file or directory is selected in one pane.