The new column called IsAnyDifference equals True if there is any difference between Old. One of the last steps is creating a new custom column which compares corresponding old and new columns. It improves the readability of the result. I often rename the columns in a form like on the following screenshot. It guarantees that you see the not matching records of both files. In this scenario, the full outer join is the recommended choice. In the Merge mask, you can define what kind of JOIN should be used. You can later merge these source files in different ways if needed. I recommend using Merge Queries as New because we will create a new query and our source files will stay unchanged. The next step is merging these two files. Either you right-click in the space under the previous query or you use the ribbon Home and click on the New Source.Īfter the import of the second file you should see two queries.

As you can see in the screenshot below, there are two options how to do that. Next, you import the second file you want to compare. After you choose a file, the following window gets opened.ĭo not click on the button Load but use the button Edit instead. Open the ribbon Data and click on From Text/CSV in the left upper corner. What I suggest is the following: I import both CSV files into Power Query Editor in Excel, merge them by their keys and compare all corresponding columns.įirst, you have to import both files in Power Query in Excel. Let’s take a look at a Power Query solution. That all is a lot of work and the result is unreliable. You also have to sort both CSV files before you start comparing them. But they are designed to compare code lines and not to search for differences in huge CSV files.

There are many tools which compare two files line by line like Notepad++, Visual Studio Code or many others. Earlier, I used Notepad++ or Visual Studio Code for comparing CSV files but nowadays I use Power Query for that! The first step is to uncover the differences. And it is your task to find out what the problem is and, of course, you have to fix it.

But the tester does not describe the exact cause, they just export a CSV file from both systems and say that the numbers are not the same. Imagine the following scenario: You have migrated a report from an old system to the great Power BI and a tester reports a bug in the new report.

Notepad++ compare documents