WinMerge is a free software tool for data comparison and merging of text-like files. It is useful for determining what has changed between versions, and then merging changes between versions. For a planned development of version 3.x no commits have been made to the 3.0 codebase since 2011. In 2011 a fork of the 2.x codebase titled "WinMerge 2011" was created. This new branch has continued to see active feature and bug fix development. It has also removed ATL/MFC dependencies so that WinMerge can be built using the free Visual C++ Express editions. WinMerge runs on Microsoft Windows. Features Visual differencing and merging of text files Flexible editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers, and word-wrap Handles DOS, Unix, and Mac text file formats Unicode support (as of version 2.8.0, UTF-8 files are correctly read without a BOM) Difference pane shows current difference in two vertical panes Location pane shows map of files compared Highlights differences inside lines in file compare Can also generate HTML report with differences highlighted Regular expression-based file filters in directory compare allow excluding and including items Moved lines detection in file compare Ability to ignore whitespace and letter case changes Creates patch files Shell integration (supports 64-bit Windows versions) Rudimentary Visual SourceSafe and Rational ClearCase integration Archive file support using 7-Zip Plug-ins Language localization via plain-text PO files Online manual and installed HTML help manual Generates normal, context, and unified patches. See also Comparison of file comparison tools References External links Compare and merge files and folders with WinMerge Lifehacker WinMerge Portable Sdottaka's WinMerge on BitBucket and on GitHub (a fork with additional features and Japanese language support) (gone) WinMerge 2011 on BitBucket and on GitHub (a fork with additional features) (gone) File comparison tools Free file comparison tools Free software programmed in C++ Windows-only free software