XLSX Diff

A VS Code extension for visually comparing and editing .xlsx workbooks — directly inside the editor, with first-class Git / SCM integration.

Features

• Side-by-side spreadsheet diff — view left and right workbooks in a clean table layout with colour-coded differences (modified / added / removed).
• Git & SCM integration — click any .xlsx file in the Source Control panel to open the diff view automatically.
• Sheet tabs — navigate between multiple worksheets; tabs show diff markers when a sheet contains changes.
• Row filters — toggle between All rows, Diff rows only, or Same rows only.
• Diff navigation — jump to the previous / next changed cell with a single click or keyboard shortcut.
• Pagination — large workbooks are split into pages for performance.
• Row height sync — left and right rows are height-matched so multi-line cells align correctly.
• Formula display — cells containing formulas show an fx badge.
• Cell editing — double-click any cell in a local (non-read-only) workbook to edit it inline. Press Enter or Tab to save; press Escape to cancel.
• Swap — swap left and right sides with one click.
• Auto-reload — the diff view refreshes automatically when a watched file changes on disk.
• Bilingual UI — Chinese (Simplified) and English, following the VS Code display language setting.

Usage

Compare two files

1. Right-click an .xlsx file in the Explorer and choose XLSX Diff: Compare Active XLSX With… — then pick the second file.
2. Or open the Command Palette (⌘⇧P / Ctrl+Shift+P) and run XLSX Diff: Compare Two XLSX Files.

Compare from Source Control

Open the Source Control panel, then click any .xlsx file listed under Changes. The XLSX diff view opens automatically instead of VS Code's built-in binary diff.

Keyboard shortcuts in the diff view

Editing a cell

1. Make sure the target file is a local .xlsx file (not a Git history version or read-only file).
2. Double-click the cell you want to edit.
3. Type the new value.
4. Press Enter or Tab to save — the file is written immediately and the diff view reloads.
5. Press Escape to cancel without saving.

Ghost cells (e.g. the placeholder on the left side of a row that only exists on the right) are not editable.

Settings

Git difftool integration

You can configure Git to use this extension as your difftool for .xlsx files.

~/.gitconfig:

[diff]
    tool = xlsx-vscode
[difftool "xlsx-vscode"]
    cmd = "node /absolute/path/to/vscode-xlsx-diff/scripts/xlsx-difftool.mjs" "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED"
    prompt = false

.gitattributes in your repository:

*.xlsx diff=xlsx

Running git difftool on an .xlsx file will then open the XLSX Diff panel in VS Code.

If you are using a different publisher ID, set the environment variable before running the script:

export VSCODE_XLSX_DIFF_EXTENSION_ID=your-publisher.xlsx-diff

Local development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start watch build (extension + webview)
npm run watch

# Press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host
# Then right-click an .xlsx file in Explorer or SCM view

# Type-check all targets
npm run check-types

# Run tests
npm test

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Current behavior notes

• Comparison is value/formula oriented
• renamed sheets are matched by content signature
• merged range changes are surfaced as sheet-level warnings
• row pagination defaults to 200 rows per page
• the current loader scans each sheet's used range eagerly

Known gaps

• no style-level diff visualization yet
• no chart / pivot / macro diff yet
• no merge tool flow yet
• large sheets are paginated in the UI, but workbook parsing is still eager