How can I simply check whether two Excel files are the same, or not

Question

I don't want to know WHAT are the differences, I just want to know "Y/N Are these sheets identical?"

Unfortunately, superficially Hashing the file doesn't answer that :(

Specifically ...

• I took an .XLSX file, and file-copied it.
• Compared hashes ... Hashes were the same. Yay!
• Opened one file, clicked on a cell, saved & closed file.
• Compared hashes ... Hashes were different. Boo!
• Opened both files, selected the same cell in each file. Saved & closed files.
• Compared hashes ... Hashes were still different. Boooooo!
• Deleted one file and re-copied the remaining file.
• Compared hashes ... Hashes were the same. Yay!
• Opened one file, didn't touch anythign at all!, saved & closed file.
• Compared hashes ... Hashes were still different. Boooooooooooooooo!

So, evidently Excel just doesn't save the file in a stable manner. (or the has includes the last-saved date?)

Is there any way to get a stable hash, based on the cell contents of a sheet?

Answer 1

One option would be to use a macro to check the sheets. If the result of the counter is greater than 0 then the sheets are different.

'~~~> Set the counter to 0.
i = 0

'~~~ Begin a double loop.
For r = 1 To SourceR

    For c = 1 To SourceC

        '~~~> Compare each cell in the two sheets.
        If SourceWS.Cells(r, c) <> TargetWS.Cells(r, c) Then

            If SourceWS.Cells(r, c) <> SourceWS.Range("CheckForUpdates") Then

                '~~~> Increase the counter by 1.
                i = i + 1

            End If

        End If

    Next c

Next r