[Release] GroupDocs.Comparison for .NET v26.10

GroupDocs.Comparison Product Family
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Dear GroupDocs customers,

We are pleased to announce the release of GroupDocs.Comparison for .NET 26.10. This release introduces OCR-based image comparison - images are now compared by the text recognized in them and brings a large set of spreadsheet comparison fixes, including a major performance improvement for XLSX files, along with improvements to PDF, Word, TXT and HTML preview output.

:sparkles: New Feature: Compare images by recognized text (OCR)

GroupDocs.Comparison can now compare images by the text recognized in them. With OCR comparison enabled, the text is recognized on both images first and then compared as text, so the result shows the actual wording that changed. This makes it possible to compare scanned contracts, screenshots, photographed documents and other image-only files in a meaningful way.

A new OcrOptions class is exposed through the new CompareOptions.Ocr property, with OcrDisplayMode.SideBySide (preserves the original layout of both documents) and OcrDisplayMode.Text (plain-text result with deleted and inserted words highlighted) result layouts.

using (Comparer comparer = new Comparer("source.png"))
{
    var options = new CompareOptions
    {
        Ocr = new OcrOptions
        {
            Enabled = true,
            DisplayMode = OcrDisplayMode.SideBySide
        },
        GenerateSummaryPage = false
    };

    comparer.Add("target.png");
    comparer.Compare("result.png", options);
}

Please note that OCR comparison is not available for .NET Framework.

:bar_chart: Spreadsheet Comparison Improvements

  • Support HighlightColor in StyleSettings for spreadsheet comparison (COMPARISONNET-4944): The HighlightColor property of StyleSettings is now applied when comparing spreadsheets, so the background color used to mark changed cells can be customized the same way as for other formats.
  • Fix XLSX comparison taking minutes even for identical files (COMPARISONNET-4945): Comparison of large XLSX files was disproportionately slow, taking minutes even when the documents were identical. The bottleneck has been removed and such comparisons now complete quickly — this also speeds up comparison of files that do differ.
  • Fix one deleted row marking every following row as changed in XLSX comparison (COMPARISONNET-4940): Row alignment after a deleted row is now correct, so only the actually changed rows are reported.
  • Preserve auto-height rows instead of forcing a fixed 15 pt height in XLSX result (COMPARISONNET-4946): Auto-height rows keep their original behaviour in the comparison result.
  • Preserve the numeric cell type in the spreadsheet comparison result (COMPARISONNET-4947): Numeric cells are no longer converted to text in the result document.
  • Avoid replacing short text strings entirely in Excel comparison (COMPARISONNET-4943): Short strings are now compared more granularly instead of being reported as a full replacement.

:hammer_and_wrench: Other Improvements & Fixes

  • Show replaced text as deleted and then inserted in PDF comparison (COMPARISONNET-4931): Replacements are now represented consistently as a deletion followed by an insertion.
  • Normalize the order of deleted and inserted components in TXT comparison output (COMPARISONNET-4927): The order of change components in text comparison output is now predictable.
  • Remove temporary path usage from HTML preview generation (COMPARISONNET-4935): HTML preview generation no longer depends on temporary file storage — useful in restricted or containerized environments.
  • Fix PageNumbers property being ignored in PreviewOptions when rendering HTML files (COMPARISONNET-4936): PageNumbers is now respected when generating previews of HTML documents.
  • Fix document comparison crash when comparing Word documents with tables (COMPARISONNET-4926): Resolved a crash that occurred for certain Word documents containing tables.
  • Fix lost line breaks in the HTML result of text comparison (COMPARISONNET-4923): Line breaks are now preserved in the HTML output of text comparison.
  • A set of internal improvements (COMPARISONNET-4917): Various internal enhancements for stability and performance.

:link: Useful Links

If you compare spreadsheets — especially large XLSX files — we strongly recommend upgrading to this version for the performance and accuracy improvements. And if you work with scanned documents or screenshots, give the new OCR comparison a try.

We’d love to hear your feedback! Let us know if you have any questions or feature requests for upcoming releases.

Best regards,
The GroupDocs Team