Araxis Merge 2025.0 30 April 2025$$$This release features a variety of quality-of-life improvements and significant under-the-hood changes. It is the first version of Merge to be released simultaneously for Windows and macOS. Please read the release notes below for a complete list of changes.$$$This is the current production-quality release that Araxis recommends for all users.$$$This release is free of charge for all customers with upgrade/support entitlement covering the build date indicated in the download box below; including everyone who purchased Merge within the year prior to that date.$$$$$$Enhancements$$$Windows macOS Each new release of Merge now includes both Merge for Windows and Merge for macOS. Previously; each platform had an independent release cadence. This change has several benefits: #6973 #7000$$$$$$It simplifies downloads and streamlines release notes.$$$Customers using Merge on both Windows and macOS now benefit from a combined release cycle with identical version numbers across both platforms.$$$It is easier for Araxis to align enhancements and bug fixes across platforms.$$$Windows macOS Merge version numbers are now more succinct and easier to understand. The major version continues to reflect the year of release (e.g. 2025). The minor version now resets to 0 for the first release made in each year and increments for each subsequent release. #6973 #7000$$$$$$Windows We now code-sign the Merge for Windows setup packages and binaries using Microsoft Azure Trusted Signing. (Earlier versions of Merge for Windows were signed with a DigiCert EV certificate.) Microsoft Azure Trusted Signing ensures optimal trust on Windows platforms and provides assurance of the integrity and authenticity of the Araxis Merge setup packages and binaries. #7042$$$$$$Windows macOS We have rewritten the code that checks for newly available releases so that it performs identically on both macOS and Windows. Notification messages about new releases are more explicit and include the whole version number of any available update rather than just its build number. #6973$$$$$$macOS Merge for macOS update-notification messages are now identical to those of Merge for Windows. They now include relevant information about the expiry date of the current serial number and whether it will work with a newly available release. #6973$$$$$$Windows macOS The silencing of notification messages about newly available Merge updates is now specific to each release. For example; if you silence a notification for the 2025.1 release; Merge will notify you when 2025.2 becomes available. You can disable update notifications entirely with the pre-existing ApplicationNotificationsUpdates available for download setting. #6973$$$$$$macOS We have consolidated settings related to update checking. The ApplicationGeneralCheck online for product updates setting is removed; being subsumed into the ApplicationNotificationsUpdates available for download setting so that Merge no longer checks for updates when that notification is disabled. Windows Merge for Windows also now entirely suppresses update checking when this notification is disabled. #6973$$$$$$Windows Commands to manipulate the character encoding of a file are easier to discover and understand. The Set Encoding ribbon item is now an Encoding menu with two items: #6983$$$$$$Reopen file with encoding… reopens the current file with a specified encoding.$$$Set encoding for file save… sets the character encoding used when you next save the current file.$$$We have also replaced the text comparison Reopen file with encoding… context menu item with the new Encoding submenu.$$$$$$We have removed the Reopen file with encoding… item from the context menu of binary and image comparisons.$$$macOS Commands to manipulate the character encoding of a file are easier to discover and understand. The Set Encoding toolbar item is now an Encoding menu with two items: #6983$$$$$$Reopen File with Encoding… reopens the current file with a specified encoding.$$$Set

Merge 2024.6002 for Windows 3 October 2024$$$This release enables WinGet to determine whether the latest version of Merge is already installed. Please read the notes below for a complete description of the change.$$$$$$This is the current production-quality release that Araxis recommends for all users.$$$$$$This release is free of charge to all customers with upgrade/support entitlement covering the build date indicated in the download box below; including everyone who purchased Merge within the year prior to that date.$$$$$$System requirements$$$This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:$$$$$$Windows 11 24H2 (2024 Update)$$$Windows 11 23H2 (2023 Update)$$$Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)$$$The following platforms are also supported and expected to work but not routinely tested:$$$$$$Windows Server 2022$$$Windows Server 2019$$$Defects fixed$$$The previous release of Merge added support for installation via the WinGet command-line tool. Unfortunately; the winget upgrade command would always consider Merge to be out of date; even when the latest version was already installed. This release resolves that problem via several changes: #6989$$$$$$The internal product version number shown in the Apps?Installed apps section of Windows Settings is now the same for both the English and Japanese localizations of Merge.$$$The scheme used to form that internal version number has changed to conform to WinGet requirements.$$$The manifest for Araxis Merge published in the WinGet Package Manager Community Repository now includes a mapping from the product’s marketing version (for example; 2024.6002) to the internal version displayed in Windows Settings.$$$Prior versions of Araxis Merge have been removed from the WinGet Package Manager Community Repository. This was necessary because the internal product version number scheme used by previous versions of Merge is incompatible with the requirements imposed by WinGet.$$$The following additional changes have also been made:$$$$$$The publisher of Merge shown in Windows Settings is now Araxis Ltd rather than Araxis.$$$The Upgrading From an Older Version of Merge and Installing Using WinGet topics have been updated to caution against upgrading an existing Merge installation using the winget upgrade command unless the existing installation has machine scope (that is; unless it is installed for all users).

Merge 2024.6001 for Windows 9 September 2024$$$$$$This release adds support for Windows 11 24H2 and makes Merge available via WinGet. It also features an assortment of enhancements and fixes. Please read the notes below for a complete list of changes.$$$$$$This is the current production-quality release that Araxis recommends for all users.$$$$$$This release is free of charge to all customers with upgrade/support entitlement covering the build date indicated in the download box below; including everyone who purchased Merge within the year prior to that date.$$$$$$System requirements$$$This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:$$$$$$Windows 11 24H2 (2024 Update; Build 26100.1591)$$$Windows 11 23H2 (2023 Update)$$$Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)$$$The following platforms are also supported and expected to work but not routinely tested:$$$$$$Windows Server 2022$$$Windows Server 2019$$$Enhancements$$$Merge is now tested and supported on Windows 11 24H2 (Build 26100.1591). This support replaces that for Windows 11 22H2. (Merge may continue to work on the latter platform; but it is no longer officially tested or supported.) #6972$$$$$$Merge for Windows is now available for installation via the WinGet command-line tool; thus offering a more convenient installation experience for many users. For more information; please see How to Install. #6864$$$$$$The following quick-access commands have been added: Start or recompare ; Delete selected ; Retest selected ; and Hide/reveal . #6898$$$$$$Scrollbar thumbs and overview strip marks are now rendered in the same colours and in the same way as Merge for macOS. As a result; the thumbs and marks are drawn with increased contrast; making them more readily visible and easier to distinguish. #6891$$$$$$The building of Merge is now entirely automated as part of a new continuous integration strategy implemented during this release cycle. Although this has taken a significant effort; customer-visible changes should be minimal. One exception is that the About dialog now shows a hash code indicating the precise commit in the Merge source code repository from which the build was created. #6907$$$$$$The OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment subset bundled with Merge has been upgraded to Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK 21.0.4+7. #6971$$$$$$Defects fixed$$$Text comparisons can now open large Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Microsoft Word documents without producing an exception. #6924$$$$$$Text comparison history list entries now always display the actual character encoding last used to load or save the file. #6953$$$$$$Character encodings expressly specified by the user are now always respected when loading text files; even when the Try to auto-detect character encoding from file content option is checked. Previously; Merge would ignore a character encoding expressly specified for a file if a suitable character encoding could be determined from a file’s contents. The Encoding field label on the dialog that appears after clicking Open URL… in an open-file dialog has also been renamed to Fallback encoding to reflect its purpose better. #6955$$$$$$Recomparing modified files can now be cancelled from the resulting Save modified files dialog without having to save the files or lose the modifications. #6866$$$$$$Swapping panes in a text comparison no longer causes syntax highlighting to stop working. #6840$$$$$$Merge no longer crashes in certain circumstances when both the Blank lines line expression and the Add vertical padding to align changes option are enabled. #6874$$$$$$The text comparison Show context around changes of only # lines option now has a minimum line count of one rather than zero. This fix avoids potential display problems and brings Merge for Windows into line with Merge for macOS. #6957$$$$$$The margin on the right of the About dialog has been adjusted. #6945$$$$$$Several slow resource leaks of Windows user and GDI objects have been fixed. #6921$$$$$$A number of error message dialogs that can poten

This release features an assortment of enhancements and fixes. Please read the notes below for a complete list of changes.$$$$$$This is the current production-quality release and is recommended for all users.$$$$$$This release is free-of-charge to all customers with upgrade/support entitlement covering the build date indicated in the download box below; including everyone who purchased Merge within the year prior to that date.$$$$$$Warning Araxis is considering the removal of the following little-used features in a future release of Merge: text comparisons for patching; the FTP file system plugin; and the Perforce file system plugin (but not general integration with Perforce unrelated to the file-system plugin; which will be retained). Please contact Araxis if the removal of any of these features would inconvenience you.

Enhancements$$$Merge is now tested and supported on Windows 11 23H2 (2023 Update). This support replaces that for Windows 11 21H2 and Windows 10 21H2. (Merge may continue to work on the latter two platforms; but they are no longer officially tested or supported.) #6799$$$A new option; Reformat the following types of text file before they are compared; enables certain types of files (JSON files and others supported by Clang-Format; including C; C++; C#; Java; JavaScript; JSON; Objective-C; and Protobuf files) to be reformatted automatically when loaded into Merge. For more information; please see Automatic formatting. #6760$$$On systems with sufficient memory; binary comparisons now support comparisons of files larger than 2–4 GB. #6727$$$Binary comparisons are more efficient in their use of memory than before. #6727$$$Binary and image comparisons now detect when loaded files are modified outside of Merge. The Automatically reload externally modified files setting on the File Comparisons options page also now works for image and binary comparisons. #5680$$$The split-view folder-comparison-with-file-comparison (Two-way with file comparison ) is now able to compare renamed files in the same way as file comparisons launched using the Launch comparisons button. Please see the Launching multiple file comparisons section of the Launching File Comparisons topic. #6777$$$The Launching multiple file comparisons and Launching a file comparison for arbitrary files sections of the Launching File Comparisons topic have been rewritten and expanded. #6777$$$More options are now provided for configuring the text antialiasing used by file comparisons. Please see the documentation for the Text antialiasing setting on the Fonts and Colours options page. #6781$$$Defects fixed$$$Line endings have been corrected in the Japanese-language example text files supplied with Merge. #6810$$$A problem with rendering text when text antialiasing is disabled has been corrected. #6781$$$The optional folder comparison Versions column now correctly displays the product version embedded in certain executable files in addition to the file version. #6803$$$The scroll bar buttons in image comparisons now scroll images in the correct directions.

Enhancements$$$The File Comparisons page has a new Automatically show the first change when reloading files option. When unchecked; Merge will endeavour to preserve the current scroll position when reloading files. #6768#6773$$$Character and Word line-wrapping options are now available as quick-access commands. #6739$$$New WhitespaceOpacity and LineEndingOpacity Windows Registry settings under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Araxis\Merge\7.1 define the opacity of whitespace and line-ending characters (if they are shown). These settings can be used to adjust the prominence of those characters relative to normal text. Both properties take values in the range 0–255; where 0 is fully transparent and 255 fully opaque. WhitespaceOpacity defaults to 96; and LineEndingOpacity to 255. #6754$$$A new LineEndingScale Windows Registry setting under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Araxis\Merge\7.1 defines the percentage scaling (relative to the size of the font for unchanged text) at which line-ending CR and LF characters are drawn. This is useful for enlarging line-ending characters when the configured font has very small CR and LF glyphs. (Rather than scaling the line-ending characters; it is generally preferable to use a font with clearer CR and LF glyphs. The Cascadia Code font; bundled with Windows 11 and Windows Terminal; is an example of such a font.) #6744$$$A new FAQ entry has been added to describe how to make Merge work with files and folders that have very long paths. #6741$$$The Merge .NET assembly now supports .NET 6 and .NET 7. Support for earlier .NET frameworks is deprecated. #6746$$$The Merge .NET assembly has been enhanced to use the same line-hashing strategy as Merge itself. This may result in improved performance for some comparisons. #6758$$$The obsolete AraxisGitDiff and AraxisGitMerge utilities have been removed. These have not been required for integrating with Git for a very long time. #6738$$$Merge and its documentation have been updated to reflect the renaming by Microsoft of Windows Explorer to File Explorer. #6772#6774$$$The FAQ entry on Linux has been updated to reflect customer experience that recent versions of Merge no longer seem to work under Wine. #6770$$$The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to the Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK Temurin-17.0.7+7. #6750$$$Defects fixed$$$Inappropriate keyboard shortcuts are no longer shown in the tooltips of quick-access commands. #6740$$$Formatting a file as XML once again results in proper indentation. #6742$$$Swapping folder comparison panes that have titles now also swaps those titles. #6769

Enhancements$$$The Alt+1 (one) to Alt+0 (zero) shortcut keys can now be used to activate the quick-access command that is at the position in the caption bar corresponding to the pressed number key: Alt+1 activates the left-most quick-access command; Alt+2 activates the second from left; etc.; Alt+0 activates the tenth quick-access command; if there is one. #6708$$$Additional whitespace-related options are now available as quick-access commands: Ignore all; Ignore leading; Ignore trailing; and Ignore consecutive. #6724$$$Quick-access commands that represent on/off options are now represented in the caption bar as two-letter icons. This makes it easier to identify particular options. #6724$$$It is now possible to choose between tabs or spaces when indenting or un-indenting blocks of text with Ctrl+I or Ctrl+U in a file editing panel. #6683$$$Individual entries in file/folder comparison history lists may now be removed by pressing the Delete key. #6725$$$Merge is now able to extract text from a wider range of PDF files. #6721$$$When extracting text from HTML files; character encoding is now detected if declared via meta elements. #6721$$$Various text-extraction filters have been enhanced in various ways to produce improved results. #6721$$$Text-extracted from PDF and .doc files now has LF line-endings. This provides consistency across macOS and Windows. #6729$$$The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to the Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK Temurin-17.0.6+10. #6628$$$Defects fixed$$$Printed folder comparisons (and their print previews) once again reflect the collapsed/expanded states of the folders in the folder comparison results list. #6723$$$Folder comparison status-line statistics are now updated when columns are swapped. #6703$$$The patch file pane and its toolbar are now properly aligned in text comparisons for patching. #6691$$$The Application menu ?Save as… menu item icon is now correct and its label properly capitalized. #6713

A new facility makes it possible to prevent folder comparisons from overloading a file storage device or service (e.g. a cloud-based datastore such as Microsoft OneDrive). For more information; see the FAQ item. #6529$$$The command-line Compare utility has been enhanced to enable improved integration of Araxis Merge with Android Studio and various JetBrains IDEs. The corresponding instructions for integrating Merge with those IDEs have been updated accordingly. #6618$$$The Command-Line Reference has been completely reworked. #6657$$$When invoked with the /? or /h option; the command-line Compare and ConsoleCompare utilities now open the Command-Line Reference in a web browser. #6631$$$Folder comparison results lists now update much more efficiently for large folder comparisons; thereby improving user-interface responsiveness. #6631$$$The various comparison layout ribbon commands (Two-way (horizontal) ; Two-way (vertical) ; Two-way with file comparison ; Three-way (horizontal) ; Three-way (vertical) ; and Three-way with file co

Enhancements$$$Character encoding in HTML files can now be detected from meta elements. For example; Merge would detect UTF-8 encoding from either of the following: #6630 <meta charset=UTF-8>$$$<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content=text/html; charset=UTF-8>$$$Instructions for integrating Merge with Android Studio and various JetBrains IDEs have been added. The existing instructions for integrating with JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA and PhpStorm have also been updated. #6621$$$Defects fixed$$$Merge no longer crashes when attempting to detect character encodings in files containing certain XML-like processing instructions (e.g. PHP files containing a <?php … ?> tag). #6629#6630$$$Files in text comparison history lists are now always recorded with an associated character encoding. Previously; there were certain situations where a character encoding would not be stored. #6633$$$Merge no longer crashes when attempting to open a file from a text comparison history list that does not have an associated character encoding recorded

Merge no longer crashes when attempting to upgrade any file or folder comparison Show history list entries stored in the Windows Registry by Merge 2018.5059 or earlier. This problem was introduced by Merge 2022.5752. #6568

This release fixes a problem with user-interface performance that was introduced by the previous release.$$$$$$This is the current production-quality release and is recommended for all users.$$$$$$This release is free-of-charge to all customers with upgrade/support entitlement covering the build date indicated in the download box below; including everyone who purchased Merge within the year prior to that date.$$$$$$System requirements$$$This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:$$$$$$Windows 11 21H2$$$Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)$$$Windows 10 21H1 (May 2021 Update)$$$Windows 10 20H2 (October 2020 Update)$$$The following platforms are also supported and expected to work; but not routinely tested:$$$$$$Windows Server 2022$$$Windows Server 2019$$$Defects fixed$$$The user interface no longer becomes sluggish when there are many entries in comparison Show history