The controls on this options page are used to configure the behaviour and appearance of file comparison windows.
Show line numbers and byte offsets
When this option is checked, Merge will display line numbers and byte offsets at the left of each file panel.
Indicate where changes are concealed at line ends
Check this option to have Merge display an indicator at the end of each line that contains changes located off the right-hand edge of the visible portion of the line.
Show CR and LF characters
When this option is checked, Merge will show the Carriage Return and/or Line Ending characters at the end of each line. This is purely a visual option, and does not affect the line endings used when files are saved (you can choose those in the Save dialog).
Show whitespace characters
Check this option to show whitespace characters in text comparisons.
Highlight text matching the current word/selection with background colour
Check this option to indicate other visible occurrences of the current word or selection. Uncheck this option if the highlighting of matching text is not desired. Use the colour selection button to change the background colour of highlighted matches.
Wrap long lines
Check this option to have Merge use multiple lines on the screen to display a long line of text.
Break lines at word boundaries
Check this option to wrap text at word boundaries instead of at the character nearest the edge.
Show context around changes of only # lines
Check this option to collapse sections of unchanged lines. The adjacent entry field can be used to specify how many lines should be shown at the top and bottom of the collapsed section to provide some context for the collapsed lines.
Show number of omitted unchanged lines
Check this option to display a count of lines that have been hidden in a collapsed block of unchanged lines.
Add vertical padding to align changes
Check this option to add padding below text blocks as required to keep all related changes vertically aligned. This setting can be especially useful in conjunction with the Intelligently split blocks of changed text based on matched line pairs option.
This option ensures only that related blocks of changed and unchanged text remain aligned. If you wish to align consecutive individual lines within those blocks, you will also need to ensure that the Wrap long lines option (see above) is unchecked. With line-wrapping enabled, individual lines within blocks of changed and unchanged text will not generally remain aligned.
Force equal character spacing # DIPs
Check this option to fix certain problems with incorrect tab alignment.
When enabled, characters are spaced evenly by the configured number of device-independent pixels (DIPs), regardless of their width as reported by their font. This can be helpful to ensure correct tab alignment when using nominally monospaced fonts that actually have characters of slightly varying width.
This option is intended primarily for use with monospaced fonts. Evenly spacing characters from a proportionally spaced font typically produces visually unappealing results.