More average use for comparing say, two generic text documents, can be done with FileMerge as well, but an easier option that is more friendly to most users would be to use an app like Microsoft Word to compare two DOC text files.
Text Compare! Is an online diff tool that can find the difference between two texts. Just paste and compare.
Need to compare two files side-by-side for differences? BBEdit for Mac makes finding and identifying file differences extremely easy with any compatible text format. This is a great solution for developers, programmers, writers, or anyone else who works with code, scripts, or plain text documents.

Mac File Diff
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This article compares computer software tools that compare files, and in many cases directories or folders, whether it is their main purpose or as part of more general file management.

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General[edit]

Basic general information about file comparison software.

Name	Creator	FOSS	Free	First public release date	Year of latest stable version	Windows	Macintosh	Linux	Other platforms	Max Supported File Size
Beyond Compare	Scooter Software^[1]	No; Proprietary	No	1996	2019-05-28 (v4.2.10)	Yes	Yes	Yes	> 2GB (64 bits)
Compare++	Coode Software^[2]	No; Proprietary	No	2010	2014-11-12 (2.21.2.0)	Yes^[3]	No	No
diff, diff3	AT&T	Yes; BSD 3-clause, BSD 4-clause, CDDL, GPL, Proprietary	Yes	1974	Yes	Yes (Mac OS X)	Yes	ported to most platforms as part of SCCS	> 2GB but less than 64 bits
Eclipse (compare)	Yes; Eclipse Public License	Yes	2004-07-21	2016-09-28 (4.6.1 (Neon.1))	Yes	Yes	Yes	Anything with Java
Ediff	Michael Kifer^[4]	Yes; GPL	Yes	1994	2.81.4	Yes^[5]	Yes (Mac OS X)	Yes	Anything with Emacs and diff
ExamDiff Pro	PrestoSoft^[6]	No; Proprietary	No	1998	2017-09-23 (v 9.0.1.6)	Yes (Win98 and up)	No	No
Far Manager (compare)	Eugene Roshal (original); FAR Group	Yes; Revised BSD license	Yes	1996	2017-08-07 (v3.0 build 5000)	Yes	No	No
fc	Microsoft^[7]	No; Proprietary	Yes; Part of OS	1987	Yes (DOS)	No	No
FileMerge (aka opendiff)	Apple Inc.	No; Proprietary	Yes; (part of Apple Developer Tools)	1993 (part of NEXTSTEP 3.2^[8])	2014 (v2.8)	No	Yes (Mac OS X)	No
Guiffy SureMerge	Guiffy Software^[9]	No; Proprietary	No	2000	2019-05-07 (v11.10)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Anything with Java	> 2GB
IntelliJ IDEA (compare)	JetBrains^[10]	No; Proprietary	No	2001	2019-08-20 (2019.2.1)	Yes	Yes	Yes
jEdit JDiff plugin	Various^[11]	Yes; GPL	Yes	1998	2012-10-04 (3.3.0)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Anything with Java
Kompare	Otto Bruggeman^[12]	Yes; GPLv2+	Yes	Yes ^[13]	Yes (Mac OS X)	Yes
Lazarus Diff	Lazarus (software)	Yes; GPL	Yes	2000	2016-11-13 (1.6.2)	Yes	Yes	Yes	FreeBSD
Meld	Stephen Kennedy^[14]	Yes; GPLv2+	Yes	2002	2018-06-19 (v3.18.2)	Yes^[15]	Yes	Yes	BSD, Solaris
Notepad++ (compare)	Various	Yes; GPLv3	Yes	2009	2015-01-06 (1.5.6.6)	Yes^[16]	No	No
Perforce P4Merge	Perforce	No; Proprietary	Yes	2019 (2019.1/1815056)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Sun Solaris
Pretty Diff	Austin Cheney^[17]	Yes; MIT-compatible	Yes	2009	2016-11-11 (2.1.14)	Yes (Web)	Yes (Web)	Yes (Web)	Node.js
Tkdiff	Tkdiff^[18]	Yes; GPLv2+	Yes	2003 (or before)	2011-11-27 (v4.2)	Yes (Tcl)	Yes (Tcl)	Yes (Tcl)	Anything with Tcl
Total Commander (compare)	Christian Ghisler^[19]	No; Proprietary	No	2016-11-23 (v9.00)	Yes	No	No
twdiff (TextWrangler Diff Helper)	Bare Bones Software, Inc.^[20]	No; Proprietary	Yes; with TextWrangler	2012 (1.0 (v22))	No	Yes	No	No
vimdiff	Bram Moolenaar et al.	Yes; GPL-compatible ^[21]	Yes	2001	2016-10-03 (v8.0.0022)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Anything with vim
WinDiff	Microsoft^[22]	No; Proprietary	Yes; Part of Platform SDK	1992	2002-08-16 14:36:14 (v5.00.2195.6601)	Yes	No	No	No
WinMerge	Dean Grimm^[23]	Yes; GPL	Yes	1998	2018-11-22 (v2.18.0)	Yes (Win95 and up)	Yes (in wine^[24])	Yes (in wine^[24])	2 GB
UCC	USC CSSE^[25]	No; USC-CSSE Limited Public License	Yes	2009	2015-12-30 (2015.12)	Yes	Yes	Yes {2.6.9}	Sun Solaris
Name	Creator	FOSS	Free	First public release date	Year of latest stable version	Windows	Macintosh	Linux	Other platforms	Max Supported File Size

Compare features[edit]

Name	Show in-line changes	Directory comparison	Binary comparison	Moved lines	3-way comparison	Merge	Structured comparison^[26]	Manual compare alignment
Beyond Compare	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes (Files and Folders)	Yes (Pro only)	Yes	Yes
Compare++	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (C/C++,C#,Java,Javascript,CSS3)
diff	No	Yes	partly	No	No	No
diff3	No	No	Yes (non-optional)
Eclipse (compare)	Yes	No (only ancestor)	Yes	No
Ediff	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ExamDiff Pro	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^[27]	Yes (ExamDiff Pro Master only)^[28]	Yes	manual synchronization
Far Manager (compare)	Yes (Via plugin) ^[29]	Yes	Yes	Yes (Via plugin) ^[29]	No	No
fc	No	No	Yes	No	No
FileMerge (aka opendiff)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (optional ancestor)	Yes
Guiffy SureMerge	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
IntelliJ IDEA (compare)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
jEdit JDiff plugin	Yes	No	Yes
Kompare	Yes	No	No	Yes
Lazarus Diff
Meld	Yes	Yes

Compare Text For Mac