Spreadsheet compare shows Description as added and deleted column

Question

Hello,

I have excel files ex: file1.xlsx and file2.xlsx.

Initially both files have content till column S. In file2.xlsx I added one column at S and deleted. Saved the file.

When I use spreadsheet compare and see result it shows as Added column S and deleted Column T. But actually there is no change.

Answer 1

What you’re seeing is a structural comparison issue, not a real data change.

Excel’s Spreadsheet Compare doesn’t track columns by a persistent identity. It compares structure positionally. When you inserted a column at S and then deleted it, Excel internally shifted columns to the right and then back again. Even though the sheet looks identical afterward, the internal structure no longer matches the original file byte-for-byte.

During comparison, the tool interprets this as a shift - i.e. what was originally column S is now seen as “new” (added), and what was originally T is interpreted as “removed,” because the relative positions changed during the insert/delete operation.

In short, the compare tool is detecting column position changes rather than logical equivalence. This is expected behavior for tools that don’t track stable column IDs.

If you want to avoid this, avoid insert/delete operations and instead copy the original sheet or use version control at the file level. Otherwise, you can ignore these differences if you know no actual data or formulas were changed.

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hth

Marcin