TextCompare

How TextCompare works

These are the tabs inside the actual app, in the order they appear — every screenshot below is a real, unedited capture of TextCompare running.

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Tab: Select Files

Step 1 — Add the before and after revisions

Point TextCompare at two folders — the drawings before a change and the same drawings after — and narrow the comparison down to specific layers or viewports before scanning. A Compare DWG / Compare with Excel switch in the title bar picks between that two-folder workflow and comparing against an exported Excel workbook instead.

1. 1Use the Compare DWG / Compare with Excel switch in the title bar first — Compare DWG (the default, described below) reads both sides from disk; Compare with Excel swaps Folder A for a single text-data workbook exported by the companion TextSync tool, while Folder B stays a live folder of DWGs.
2. 2Add Files or Add Folder into Folder A (before) and Folder B (after) — any number of DWGs on each side.
3. 3TextCompare pre-scans both folders and reports a live status per file before comparison begins.
4. 4Open the Layers tab to narrow the comparison to text and block references on specific layers, or the Viewports tab to restrict it to specific paper-space viewports.
5. 5Pick a Match strategy — Filename priority, Handle priority, or Hybrid (default, weighted toward handle matches) — and drag the Confidence threshold slider that decides how sure a file pairing has to be before it's proposed automatically.
6. 6Save the current tab selections as a named Filter profile (Save…) and reload it later (Load) for a recurring comparison job on the same project.
7. 7Click Scan & Match to read every file and propose file-to-file pairings.

Options on this screen

Filename priority / Handle priority / Hybrid (default)

Which signal to trust more when pairing a 'before' file to its 'after' counterpart. Hybrid blends both, weighted toward the handle match.

Confidence threshold

How confident a proposed file pairing has to be before TextCompare accepts it automatically instead of flagging it for manual review.

Compare DWG / Compare with Excel

Compare with Excel narrows Folder B's scan to just the layer names found in the workbook and defaults to Filename priority matching, since the workbook's recorded file names — not live handle data — are the more reliable signal on that side.

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Tab: Review Matches

Step 2 — Confirm or correct the proposed file pairings

TextCompare pairs each 'before' file to its most likely 'after' counterpart automatically — this screen is where you confirm that, or fix it by hand, before anything is compared.

1. 1Each row lists File A next to TextCompare's proposed File B, with a Filename %, Handle % and Combined % score showing how confident the match is.
2. 2Rows highlighted in red are conflicts — the filename and handle signals disagree — and list a Conflict candidate so you can see the runner-up before deciding.
3. 3Override any proposed match with the File B dropdown, or tick Exclude to drop a file from the run entirely.
4. 4Change Strategy and click Re-match at any point to re-run the pairing algorithm against the current file lists.
5. 5Click Compare once every pairing is confirmed.

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Tab: Comparison Report

Step 3 — Review exactly what changed, entry by entry

Every matched pair is compared by AutoCAD's persistent object handle, so a note that got reworded, moved to a new layer, or resized is reported precisely — never just flagged as 'different'.

1. 1Results are grouped per matched file pair, each with a summary line and an expandable list of entries.
2. 2Every entry shows its Handle, Block Name, Kind (Added / Removed / Modified) and the entry's text content, alongside how many Fields Changed.
3. 3Click Details… on any modified entry to open a popup listing every changed field's Old Value and New Value side by side — including the old and new text content itself.
4. 4Unchanged entries aren't listed at all, so a heavily-annotated sheet doesn't bury the handful of real wording changes.
5. 5Click Finish to close out the session, or Back to adjust the match and re-compare.

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Tab: Export to Excel

Hand the report to someone who doesn't have TextCompare

The same Added / Removed / Modified breakdown, with every field-level change and text content, written to a workbook that anyone can open, filter or archive — in either of two layouts you pick at export time.

1. 1From the Comparison Report screen, click Export to Excel, then choose a report layout in the dialog that appears.
2. 2The workbook lists every changed, added and removed entry with its file pairing, handle, block name, and field-level old/new values, including text content.
3. 3As a flat, filterable spreadsheet it works as a review artifact or a QA sign-off record without anyone needing TextCompare installed.

Options on this screen

One row per record (default)

Every entry gets a single row, with its own TextContent A / TextContent B column pair for the before/after wording and a comment recording every other changed field's old value.

Before/after rows for changed records

A Modified entry instead gets two adjacent rows — one with the old values, one with the new — sharing a single TextContent column, with every field that actually changed highlighted on both rows.

Environment & requirements

Everything that determines whether TextCompare will run on your machine, and how it behaves once it does.

• No Microsoft Excel installation required — TextCompare reads and writes .xlsx directly with its own engine (ClosedXML).
• Windows 10/11, 64-bit only.
• Requires a licensed, full version of AutoCAD (2021–2027). AutoCAD LT is not supported — LT can't run the background automation TextCompare depends on.
• If more than one AutoCAD version is installed, pick which one to use under Settings → AutoCAD, or leave it on "Auto (newest installed)" — if that version fails to load for any reason, it falls back to another installed version automatically.
• Built on .NET 8. If the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime isn't already on your machine, the installer prompts to fetch it from Microsoft (free, one-time, roughly 60 MB).
• Network access is used only to check your license at startup and periodically afterward. Scanning, reading and writing all happen locally through AutoCAD's own engine — no drawing content is ever uploaded.
• Interface language: English.
• Batches of many files can process several drawings in the background in parallel — tune "Max parallel AutoCAD instances" in Settings to trade speed for CPU/memory headroom.
• Every long-running action shows a progress bar with a percentage and estimated time remaining, and can be canceled mid-run.
• Settings → Diagnostics → Open Log Folder gets you straight to the host and plugin logs if something needs troubleshooting.

See also the site-wide system requirements page comparing all tools.