Compare RTF Text Custom Plugin

[GeorgeLelik]

Some time ago I was discussing with a colleague the alternatives to CompareMSWordFiles to compare .rtf documents. The issue with CompareMSWordFiles was that it is a bit slow I guess in part because it requires to convert .rtf to .docx; and that it reports each column on successive lines -- the latter may help to more precisely identify the differences but makes the diff window hard to read i.e., takes a bit to understand which column each line belongs to.

The result of this discussion, having failed to find any such plugin or options settings for the existing ones, was the following custom plugin below (using a quick AI with a source linked below).

To note, it works for our intended purpose (.rtf documents made of tables) but I have not tested it across other scenarios. It may be adapted to work with .docx documents too, for a quicker alternative to CompareMSWordFiles, but we have not had such need so I did not explore it. The WinMerge Version used was 2.16.46.0.

It was suggested that I share it here in case others find it helpful too.

1. Creating CompareRTFText Custom WinMerge Plugin
   1.1) Open WinMerge application and go to Plugins > Plugin Settings... > Add > Add unpacker plugin...; set options as follows:
   Plugin type: File Unpacker
   Plugin name: CompareRTFText
   Extension list: \.rtf$
   Description:
   Author : Georgy Soloveychik

    A plugin to compare RTF documents based on https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/visualstudio/visual-studio-2013/cc488002(v=vs.120)?redirectedfrom=MSDN__;!!GfteaDio!fdHwLp2DxfOxobXPlF-5cWChleVPsxx99-EvnQQwm7JEzjRELDOhfE0i8J20nTxQZDji8IkoNiYEY_TxuqAtw-rWcQuU2znaHtOOKec$  -- How to: Convert RTF to Plain Text (C# Programming Guide)
   

   Default arguments:
   Category: &Others
   Menu caption: CompareRTFText
   Window type:
   Unpacked file extension:

   Enable automatic unpacking/prediffing for the plugin: Check
   Require arguments: Uncheck
   Generate editor script: Uncheck

   command line (UnpackFile): powershell "Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms; $rtBox = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox; $rtBox.Rtf = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllText('${SRC_FILE}'); $plainText = $rtBox.Text; [System.IO.File]::WriteAllText('${DST_FILE}', $plainText, [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8)"

1.2) Press OK

1.3) Back in Plugins menu, find CompareRTFText; set options as follows:
File filters: \.rtf$
Plugin arguments:
Enable automatic unpacking/prediffing for the plugin: Check

1.4) Press OK

1.5) Go to Plugins > Reload plugins or restart WinMerge application

Note: this custom plugin may not work on .rtf documents which combine both tables and figures

2. To display the results as a table with columns go to Options (Compare > Table) and set
   Custom Delimiter-Separated Values
   File Patters: *.rtf
   Delimiter Character: \t

[sdottaka]

Thanks for sharing this plugin!

I noticed that the $ characters in the PowerShell command were missing from the post (see the attached screenshot), probably due to formatting, so I edited the post to restore them.