I want to use WinMerge as a plain text diff tool, without needing to compare existing files.
That is, I'd like to just click ctrl+n, paste two plain texts onto both sides, hit f4 and find differences. I tried it, but it results in "No difference" message.
Is it possible?
How it worked for me, using WinMerge: File > New > Text results in two panes "Untitled left" and "Untitled right". Then pasted text into the panes and hit F5, which made de comparison. After the comparison, closed all with Alt + F4.
Yes of course. As several others said, just Ctrl+N then F5. If it says No difference then the contents are identical
Do you see the untitled panes?
Why on earth do you use F4??? F5 has always been the shortcut to refresh in any compliant apps. The refresh feature has existed in WinMerge long before 2008, probably since the first version
There are even other related features if you check the change log
Clipboard Compare
- New Feature: Clipboard Compare (PR #1147)
- Click File → Open Clipboard menu item to compare the two most recent contents of the clipboard history.
- You can also compare by pressing Ctrl+V when the child MDI window is not visible.
As you ask your question, no. WinMerge (I have it and use it) is a file comparison tool and needs to load in both files to compare. You do not have to compare but that is the point of the tool.
The message you got (it results in "No difference" ) means the files are identical. I see this as well.
So WinMerge is working properly for you.
Not possible, but you can do just about the same using two dummy files for the comparison.
Any time that you change anything in the two files, WinMerge will re-compare immediately their text.
Of course it's possible, exactly the way Jose describes it. Ctrl-N, Paste the two texts, hit F5, voilà. I do that a lot because our code is not stored in files.
