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The problem of comparison of Microsoft Excel tables arises when there are several version of a file with the same content.
Moreover, the date of file change is not the criterion of actuality, i.e. the older file version may contain information which is more up-to-date.
The problem gets even more aggravated if different people have worked on this file at a different time, making changes in the company's price-list that is located on the internal SharePoint server. There can be many examples: from the abovementioned price-lists and product catalogues to the list of company employees and etc.
At a certain moment of time a responsible employee is to present such a table with the actual data. But he/she has several files with practically the same content, and the correct one (that is the most up-to-date) can be found only after a personal estimation (as said, the date of file change is not the criterion).
Imagine how much time it would take to visually compare the tables, if they contain hundreds of rows and columns...
The perfect variant is when a short report with the details of all differences (their location and look) is obtained. Then even after a visual inspection, it is simple to detect the most up-to-date file.
Of course, the procedure of comparison itself must be automated and performed as fast as possible: a user should specify what is to be compared and get a convenient report containing the information about all differences.
Indeed, if the problem is evident, the solution is to be found: there is a whole class of programs (plug-ins) - comparators for Microsoft Excel tables. As a rule, they differ in functional features and details of user interface (especially, it is concerned with the interface of resulting comparison reports).
With the example of such solution you can get familiar with on Remove Duplicates from Microsoft Excel product page.
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