Can I use KDiff3 to compare OpenOffice.Org, Word, Excel, PDF-, etc. files?
Although KDiff3 will analyse any kind of file the result will probably not be very satisfactory for you. KDiff3 was made to compare pure text files. OpenOffice, Word, Excel etc. store much more information in the files (about fonts, pictures, pages, colors etc.) which KDiff3 doesn’t know about. So KDiff3 will show you the contents of the file interpreted as pure text, but this might be unreadable or at least it will look very odd. Since most programs nowadays store their contents in XML-format, you might be able to read it as pure text. So if the change was only small, KDiff3 still might help you. The best solution if you only want to compare the text (without embedded objects like pictures) is to use “Select All” and “Copy” in your program to copy the interesting text to the clipoard and then in KDiff3 paste the text into either diff input window.
