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<sect1 id="Faq">
  <title>Frequently asked questions</title>

  <sect2>
    <title>General questions</title>

    <qandaset>
      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>Why is there two executable files,
          <filename>WinMerge.exe</filename> and
          <filename>WinMergeU.exe</filename>?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
              <para><filename>WinMerge.exe</filename> is ANSI executable which
              works in all 32-bit Windows systems. It does not have Unicode
              support.</para>

              <para>Internally, it stores only ANSI characters (256
              possibilities). If you open an Unicode (65536 possible
              characters) file, the characters must be converted to the ANSI
              character set. Conversion can be approximative (accents are
              lost), or impossible (characters appear as "?").</para>

              <para><filename>WinMerge.exe</filename> can neither open files
              when filename is not writeable in the current ANSI set.</para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
              <para><filename>WinMergeU.exe</filename> is Unicode enabled
              executable which works in Windows NT4, Windows 2000 and newer
              systems.</para>
            </listitem>
          </itemizedlist>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>That splash screen is annoying, how do I turn it off?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>From menu, select <menuchoice>
              <guimenu>Edit</guimenu>

              <guisubmenu>Options...</guisubmenu>

              <guisubmenu>General</guisubmenu>

              <guimenuitem>Disable Splash Screen</guimenuitem>
            </menuchoice></para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>When wanting to compare directories, I cannot select a
          directory in Browse?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Are you trying to select a directory by clicking on it in the
          upper part of the Open File dialog ? The Open File dialog will then
          open it, and you have to push <guibutton>Ok</guibutton> again to get
          out.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>Does WinMerge support merging three files? Sometimes it is
          called 3-way merge, where one file is ancestor. This would be useful
          for version control!</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Unfortunately not. We acknowledge it would be good feature but
          have no plans to implement it in near future. This can be somewhat
          work-arounded using two WinMerge instances.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>Do you have any plans to support other operating systems than
          Windows?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Not currently. If somebody wants to help/work with
          cross-platform support (using <ulink
          url="http://www.wxwidgets.org/">wxWidgets</ulink> for example) we
          are interested of course.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>There is no CVS integration?!</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Which kind of CVS integration WinMerge should have? Adding CVS
          client features to WinMerge is questionable since there are many
          good CVS clients already. Conflict file resolution is feature we are
          planning to add in future releases.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>What is MRU (list)? What it means?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>MRU is the abbreviation for "Most Recently Used", and means
          the history lists in Open-dialog thats containing 20 last used
          files/paths per side.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>Can WinMerge open Open Office files?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Yes, enable <guilabel>Detect archive type from file
          signature</guilabel> option in <guilabel>Archive
          Options</guilabel>.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>
    </qandaset>
  </sect2>

  <sect2>
    <title>Questions about binary files</title>

    <qandaset>
      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>WinMerge says "<guilabel>Binary files are
          different</guilabel>", but I am not comparing binary files?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>If you are using <filename>WinMerge.exe</filename> (not
          <filename>WinMergeU.exe</filename>), then your files may be Unicode
          files. <filename>WinMerge.exe</filename> cannot handle Unicode
          files. Please try comparing files with
          <filename>WinMergeU.exe</filename> if you have Windows NT4, Windows
          2000 or newer Windows version.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>WinMerge cannot compare registry files
          (<filename><replaceable>*</replaceable>.reg</filename>)?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Windows registry files
          (<filename><replaceable>*</replaceable>.reg</filename>) are Unicode
          files (UTF-16 or UCS-2) -- see previous answer.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>WinMerge tells my files are binary files even when they are
          not?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>There is one or more zero-bytes in your file(s). If WinMerge
          finds zero-bytes from files it detects files as binary files. You
          can try to remove those zero-bytes from files. Or open files with
          DisplayBinaryFiles -plugin. DisplayBinaryFiles -plugin allows
          viewing binary files but does not allow saving changed files.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>I cannot merge binary files?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>WinMerge does not include binary file viewer/editor so
          WinMerge can only show if binary files are identical or
          different.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>
    </qandaset>
  </sect2>

  <sect2>
    <title>Questions about editor</title>

    <qandaset>
      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>Some characters are cut in half?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Try selecting a different font from menu <menuchoice>
              <guimenu>View</guimenu>

              <guimenuitem>Select Font...</guimenuitem>
            </menuchoice></para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>I would like to see the line numbers?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>WinMerge shows current line in editor statusbar. WinMerge
          cannot show in-editor linenumbers. That is one feature we might
          consider for future releases.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>I see question marks instead of letters in files?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>This is what we call a "lossy" conversion.</para>

          <para>For Unicode files (UCS-2, UTF-8), use
          <filename>WinMergeU.exe</filename>.</para>

          <para>For ANSI files, this is probably due to code-page problem. If
          "<guilabel>Use codepage info</guilabel>" is selected from
          <guimenuitem>Options</guimenuitem>, turn that off and see if it
          helps.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>I cannot select proportional fonts for editor?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Unfortunately WinMerge 2.0 and 2.2 supports only
          non-proportional fonts.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>What means delaying of (automatic) rescan? Why it is
          needed?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>When <guilabel>Automatic Rescan</guilabel> is enabled WinMerge
          delays rescanning while user edits files. So there is no rescanning
          happening when user types text but shortly after user has finished
          typing. Without this delaying WinMerge would do rescan after every
          typed letter and editing files would become slow. This delaying
          especially improves editing of bigger files which can take several
          seconds to rescan.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>Can I print files from editor?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Unfortunately printing is not supported. This is one area
          where we really appreciate help in implementation!</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>
    </qandaset>
  </sect2>

  <sect2>
    <title>WinMerge as external compare or diff-tool</title>

    <qandaset>
      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>I want that WinMerge is closed with single
          <keycap>ESC</keycap> press after I'm done?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Use <option>-e</option> commandline switch.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>How can I avoid temporary paths filling Open-dialog history
          lists?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Tell program to invoke WinMerge with the <option>/ub</option>
          option, which tells WinMerge to not add the files to the MRU.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>But program I'm using doesn't allow commandline
          parameters!</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Create a batch file where you add one of these lines (but not
          both):</para>

          <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
              <screen>CALL "<replaceable>&lt;winmerge path&gt;\WinMerge</replaceable>" /ub %1 %2</screen>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
              <screen>start "WinMerge" "<replaceable>&lt;winmerge path&gt;</replaceable>" /ub %1 %2</screen>
            </listitem>
          </itemizedlist>

          <para>And then call this batch file from program.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>
    </qandaset>
  </sect2>

  <sect2>
    <title>Archive support</title>

    <qandaset>
      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>How can I open "Perry-style" patch files WinMerge developers
          use when submitting patches?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>"Perry-style" patches are zip-files containing original and
          changed files in different directories. WinMerge has internal
          support (surprise?) for handling these files. Just select zip file
          in question to left side and right side and WinMerge opens zip files
          contents to directory compare comparing original and altered
          files.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>I do not want to install 7-zip. Can archive support use other
          archive tools (like WinZip or WinRar)?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Unfortunately WinMerge can only use 7-zip.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>Can WinMerge open archive files with non-standard
          file-extensions? (For example .jar files as zip-files)</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Yes, enable <guilabel>Detect archive type from file
          signature</guilabel> option in <guilabel>Archive
          Options</guilabel>.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>
    </qandaset>
  </sect2>

  <sect2>
    <title>Text encoding (codepages)</title>

    <qandaset>
      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>How do I tell if my file is coded in the local windows
          codepage?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>Open the file with Windows notepad (eg. <menuchoice>
              <guimenu>Start</guimenu>

              <guisubmenu>(All) Programs</guisubmenu>

              <guisubmenu>Accessories</guisubmenu>

              <guimenuitem>Notepad</guimenuitem>
            </menuchoice>. Choose <menuchoice>
              <guimenu>File</guimenu>

              <guimenuitem>Save As</guimenuitem>
            </menuchoice>, and in the Save As dialog which appears, look at
          the dropdown list at the very bottom, labelled
          "<guilabel>Encoding</guilabel>".</para>

          <itemizedlist>
            <listitem>
              <para>If it says "<guilabel>ANSI</guilabel>", the file is
              (apparently) in the local windows codepage. If the file is
              entirely in English and normal punctuation, then the file is
              also in ASCII.</para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
              <para>If it says "<guilabel>Unicode</guilabel>", the file is
              (probably) in the default Windows Unicode encoding
              "UCS-2LE".</para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
              <para>If it says "<guilabel>UTF-8</guilabel>", the file is in
              the cross-platform Unicode encoding "UTF-8".</para>
            </listitem>

            <listitem>
              <para>If it says "<guilabel>Unicode big endian</guilabel>", the
              file is in a different Unicode encoding not much used or
              supported under Windows, probably "UCS-2BE".</para>
            </listitem>
          </itemizedlist>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>
    </qandaset>
  </sect2>

  <sect2>
    <title>Patch files</title>

    <qandaset>
      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>Is there way to create patch files from commandline?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>No. It may be added in later versions but until then Win32
          port of diffutils can be used. Win32 port of diffutils (and patch)
          can be downloaded from <productname>GnuWin32</productname> project
          from SourceForge: <ulink
          url="???">http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuwin32</ulink></para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>

      <qandaentry>
        <question>
          <para>Can patches be applied using WinMerge?</para>
        </question>

        <answer>
          <para>No. Patch tool from GnuWin32 project can be used for patch
          applying since WinMerge produces GNU/diffutils compatible patch
          files. See above question.</para>
        </answer>
      </qandaentry>
    </qandaset>

    <para></para>
  </sect2>
</sect1>