How to compare Excel sheets side by side?

If you need to compare two or more sheets across workbooks, switching between them one by one can be tedious. This guide explains how to compare sheets side by side, either horizontally or vertically, as shown in the screenshots below.

Compare multiple sheets side by side with Arrange All function

Compare two lists in difference sheets and find duplicates with Kutools for Excel

Compare multiple sheets side by side with Arrange All function

In Excel, you can compare multiple sheets across different workbooks with the Arrange All function.

1. Open all workbooks you want to compare, and activate one of them, and click View > Arrange All. See screenshot:

2. Then the Arrange Windows dialog pops out, you can check one option in the Arrange section as you need.

2. Click OK, and the workbooks windows will be arranged side by side.

Tiled: arrange and resize all opened workbooks so that all of them can be fitted side by side on the screen. See screenshot:

Horizontal: resize the workbooks windows equally and arrange them one above one horizontally. See screenshot:

Vertical: resize workbooks in same size and arrange them left to right. See screenshot:

Cascade: arrange and size workbooks overlap one and another with each title bar shown only. See screenshot:

Compare two lists in difference sheets and find duplicates with Kutools for Excel

If you just want to compare two data lists in different sheets in the one workbook for finding the different or same values, you can apply Kutools for Excel’s Select Same & Different Cells utility to quickly compare two lists by cells or rows as below screenshot shown.

1. Select the first one list you want to compare to, and click Kutools > Select > Select Same & Different Cells. See screenshot:

2. Then in the Select Same & Different Cells dialog, click  in According to: (Range B) to select the second list you want to compare with the first list. See screenshot:

3. You can check the My data has headers option to exclude headers from the comparison if both lists share the same headers, and select one option in the Based on and Find section as you need, if you want to highlight the selected same values or different values, you can check Fill background or Fill font color option in Processing of result section. See screenshot:

4. Click Ok, and a dialog pops up to remind you the number of matching or differing values in the two lists. See screenshot:

5. Click OK to close the popping remind dialog.