What does the SOLIDWORKS PDM File Compare function do?

In this tech tip I’ll describe what the SOLIDWORKS PDM File Comparison function is and how it works:

SOLIDWORKS PDM File Compare

This function can compare two different versions of a file. It can be performed by going to the ‘History’ of the file and multi-select versions of a file and select ‘Compare’. Users then need some form of application that can perform the comparison (on a .sldprt file for example).

File Compare Results

This function can be found in the SOLIDWORKS PDM Administration tool > Users > Settings > File Compare.

SOLIDWORKS PDM Administration tool

All the compare function does is launch an executable with arguments for the two selected files or versions, i.e.

programtocompare.exe [Firstfile] [SecondFile].

SOLIDWORKS does have a compare function, but users need to be able to launch SOLIDWORKS and provide two arguments to trigger the comparison. The ‘File Compare’ tab is an option provided in SOLIDWORKS PDM but it needs to be customized by the users.