PowerPoint presentation comparison

TurtleGit can compare captured .ppt, .pptx and .pptm presentations in a native review window. It reviews package-aware slide and shape revisions and saves an editable copy. Microsoft PowerPoint is needed for rendered previews, normalizing binary .ppt inputs and saving legacy .ppt output. When PowerPoint is unavailable, Open XML presentations can still be reviewed through their package metadata and revision decisions. The original files remain unchanged.

Open a comparison

Compare two revisions or working files through the ordinary file-comparison commands. New settings include the three PowerPoint associations. With saved settings from an earlier build, choose Settings → Diff Viewer → Advanced → Restore Defaults, or assign Microsoft PowerPoint presentation comparison to the relevant extension. Restore Defaults replaces the bundled extension associations; unrelated custom associations remain. Shift uses the existing alternate-tool selection.

macOS may request permission for TurtleGit to control Microsoft PowerPoint. An Automation denial reports the relevant System Settings location. PowerPoint opens captured read-only copies with macros disabled, exports the slides, then closes those owned presentations and restores its previous macro policy. It keeps other open presentations and the application instance intact.

Review slides

The list identifies added, deleted, modified and moved slides with source icons and different colors. Select a row to inspect the corresponding base and new slides. Changes only hides unchanged rows. Previous/next change moves between changed slides; ordinary slide navigation also includes unchanged rows.

Side by side displays the pair in a shared scrolling surface. Overlay blends the two versions. Differences marks changed pixels in red over a muted slide. Fit and zoom apply to both sides together. View mode, Changes only, Fit and zoom are saved in the owning settings domain; the selected slide belongs to the current comparison.

Expand Text and notes to read slide text and speaker notes. Their headings highlight changed fields. Copy Review and Export Review… produce a text summary with slide indices, actions, moves and changed text/notes. Editable review entries also include their Accepted New / Rejected Base / Unresolved decisions. Cancel stops preparation or rendering, and Retry can restart the cancelled or failed read. Close cancels the window's remaining work and releases its captured files after that work retires. Help opens this guide offline when the bundled book is present.

Accept or reject revisions

For a supported Open XML presentation, Editable revision review lists changed slides, shapes/groups, stacking order, comments and shared presentation properties. Select an entry to read its scope and the corresponding Base/New text and notes. Accept selected takes New; Reject selected keeps Base. Accept all and Reject all decide the full review. Undo and Redo restore decision changes; Command-Z and Shift-Command-Z use the same review history.

Pictures, charts, embedded content, layouts and themes are package dependencies, not just visible text. The review compares linked content as well as XML. Objects inside supported, unchanged group containers can be reviewed independently, including nested groups and stacking order within each group. The revision list shows the containing group path below each object; the full path is available in its tooltip and details. Accepting one child's change does not accept its siblings' changes. If the group's own transform or properties change, its entry explicitly covers the whole group. Added and deleted groups are also complete-group decisions. Opaque or unknown group content stays together as a group or slide decision. Moving an object between groups appears as a deletion and an addition. Selected connectors must retain an unambiguous selected target; an unsafe combination reports an error rather than silently detaching the connector. Changes whose references must stay together, such as a slide environment with notes/timing/layout changes, are labeled as a complete slide decision. The selected dependency graph is carried into the output.

Review comments and replies

Choose Comments in Review entries to see the complete comment inventory, including unchanged thread context. All revisions keeps changed comments alongside slide and shape revisions. Previous comment and Next comment select a comment and its source slide. A comments-only slide remains available with Changes only enabled.

The Base and New panes show classic comments and modern threaded comments with author initials, author names, creation dates, status, and replies. Click an author inside a thread to select that comment's decision. Expand Anchor to inspect the source position or moniker. Anchors are source metadata; the pane does not guess an on-slide balloon position or highlight an unrelated shape.

Accept selected keeps the New comment; Reject selected keeps Base. An added comment rejected to Base is omitted; a deleted comment rejected to Base is retained. Delete comment explicitly removes a comment from the editable output, even when that comment was unchanged. Deleting a parent also removes its replies. Select the deleted parent and choose Restore comment, or use Undo, to restore its thread. An inherited reply deletion cannot restore its parent. Undo and Redo include comment deletion and restoration in the same history as slide and shape decisions. Unchanged context does not need an accept/reject decision. Copy/Export Review includes comment text, authors, dates, status, anchors and the chosen decisions.

Editable output preserves supported classic threading and modern nested replies, author references, status and anchors while combining comment choices with the selected slide/shape revisions. A comment whose anchor refers to a rejected shape or incompatible selected text reports a precise export error. Retain the anchor shape/text or reject/delete the comment. Unknown comment extensions or unsupported person registries may require a coherent complete revision; they are not silently discarded. No comment edits are written to either original file. Save and result preview capture the complete decision plan; canceling or closing a pending export suppresses late output and waits for owned work before releasing private captures.

After every entry has a decision, Save Editable Copy… writes a presentation through a native Save panel. Choose Open XML output (.pptx or .pptm) or PowerPoint 97–2003 (.ppt). Binary inputs default to legacy output; legacy conversion requires installed PowerPoint. Macro-bearing inputs require .pptm when saving Open XML. TurtleGit preserves opaque macro parts without executing them. Package digital signatures are removed when saving reviewed output; the file must be signed again. The originals, their aliases and TurtleGit's captured inputs cannot be selected as the output.

The Source slides view keeps the original Base and New previews. After resolving the decisions, choose Preview Result to render the actual combined presentation through PowerPoint. Combined result has its own slide navigation and text/notes. Changing a decision marks that preview stale; press Preview Result again to update it. Changing decisions does not automatically open PowerPoint. The source/result display choice is saved with the other comparison preferences. Rendering a preview does not save the editable copy or mark its decisions saved.

For binary .ppt inputs, PowerPoint first creates private macro-enabled Open XML copies. The revision editor works on those normalized copies, keeping the original binary files untouched. Legacy Save As converts a private resolved snapshot, then publishes its bytes to the selected destination only after PowerPoint confirms closure. Format conversion can change unsupported legacy features; inspect the saved file in PowerPoint before relying on fidelity for a particular presentation. A package error or unsupported mixed combination reports its reason rather than silently flattening the content.

Closing a review or quitting the app with unsaved decisions offers Discard / Cancel. Save the editable copy before closing to retain the result. Decisions belong to the current review session. Closing or cancelling during work cancels its captured token and keeps file grants/private inputs alive until the actual reader or writer settles. An in-flight atomic save may already have committed before cancellation arrives.

Current scope

The Windows script uses PowerPoint's presentation Merge/revision interface. Microsoft documents that this interface is unavailable on Mac. TurtleGit provides slide review through private PowerPoint PDF exports and slide metadata. It compares a finite raster representation, text and notes; tiny visual changes below the fingerprint resolution can require inspection at higher zoom.

The package revision engine adds slide and shape/group decisions and editable Open XML output; it does not reproduce Windows PowerPoint's entire revision UI. Individual children inside groups, arbitrary presentation-wide reference changes and all animation/transition/comment combinations still require broader implementation or acceptance. Binary conversion and result rendering require installed-PowerPoint acceptance beyond the injected adapter checks. Unsupported combinations report a reason instead of losing dependent content. This adapter is a comparison tool; conflict merging retains the existing configured merge-tool workflow.

The package editor currently accepts transitional Open XML with UTF-8 XML. Strict Open XML namespaces, UTF-16/non-UTF-8 XML, DTD/entity declarations, encrypted or ZIP64 archives and unknown top-level shape constructs report an explicit reason. Stable identities are matched first. Regenerated slide/shape IDs can be matched by unique content/dependency anchors and sufficiently distinct similarity; ambiguous duplicates remain additions/deletions. Classic comment authors and per-author comment indexes are remapped when combining revisions. Supported modern threaded comments and authors are also combined. Unknown comment/person registry extensions require a coherent complete revision. Mixed choices involving incompatible global notes or handout masters, namespace prefixes, duplicate group-child IDs or references to rejected shapes/slides can be refused. Choose a coherent complete revision or adjust the decisions; the editor does not silently discard those references.

Package limits are 20,000 ZIP members, 128 MiB per member, 512 MiB expanded and 768 MiB archived; XML/dependency/shape traversal has additional bounded limits. The current visual limits are 512 slides per side, 128 MiB per exported PDF and 64 MiB of exported slide text/notes across both sides. The PowerPoint metadata walk also limits the captured shape count and text units. The reader checks that the export accounts for every manifest slide, including hidden slides, and reports missing pages instead of publishing a partial comparison. Password-protected, rights-managed or otherwise unexportable presentations report the PowerPoint error.

Actual installed PowerPoint rendering, file grants, Automation prompts, hidden slides and signed sandbox behavior require separate acceptance. See the source comparison and dated checks.