What are the best tools for visually comparing PDFs?

6

Options
Considered

5

User
Recs.

Jun 26, 2019

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

6 Options Considered

Best tools for visually comparing PDFs	Price	Platforms	Real-time collaboration
-- Adobe Acrobat	$299 - $499	Windows; Mac; Android; iOS	No
-- DiffPDF [FOSS version]	Free	-	-
-- diff-pdf [Václav Slavík]	Free	-	-
-- pdf-diff [Joshua Tauberer]	Free	-	-
-- ComparePDF	$180	-	-

Adobe Acrobat

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Top Con

Very expensive

While there's a free version of Acrobat Reader, it does not allow editing. There's a choice of Standard edition that costs $299, and Pro version for $499. See More

Top Pro

Allows comparing two separate PDF files for differences

Reader can compare two versions of a PDF file and highlight differences. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; Mac; Android; iOS

Real-time collaboration:No

Exports:.pdf; .ps; .eps; .html; .htm; .jpg; .jpeg; .jpe; .jpf; .jpx; .jp2; .j2k; .j2c; .jpc.png; .pptx; .rtf; .txt; .tif; .tiff; .xlsx; .doc; .docx; .xml; .csv

Imports:.doc; .docx; .xls; .xlsx; .ppt; .pptx; .txt; .rtf; .ps; .eps; .prn; .bmp; .jpeg; .gif; .tiff; .png; .pcx; .emf; .rle; .dib; .wpd; .odt; .odp; .ods; .odg; .odf; .sxw; .sxi; .sxc; .sxd; .stw; .psd; .ai; .u3d; .prc; .dwg; .dwt; .dxf; .dwf; .dst; .xps

Top Pro

Excellent compatibility with the PDF standard

Since Adobe is the creator of the PDF standard, it stands to reason that Adobe's Acrobat Reader has the excellent support for it. See More

Top Pro

Video playback support

Flash and H.264 encoded video can be played back in a Adobe Reader. See More

Top Pro

Allows real-time collaboration

Since version 9, Reader supports real-time collaboration that synchronizes documents and includes chat. See More

Top Pro

Touch-friendly interface for the desktop version

The interface has big enough button that they can be used on a tablet sized device. See More

Top Pro

Good annotation options

Acrobat allows commenting on text, highlighting text and leave audio messages. See More

Top Pro

Search allows finding functionality

You don't have to look trough menus to find specific functionality, instead you can use search that's available in the sidebar and the tools tab to find the functionality you're looking for. You don't have to know the name of the tool either, related terms will work. See More

Top Pro

Desktop app supports electronic signatures

You can both sign as well as send PDFs for signature. See More

Top Pro

Allows getting notified when recipients view or download a file

You can use the document cloud to get a shareable link to any of your documents. And it's possible to get notified when a document cloud document gets viewed and/or downloaded. See More

Top Pro

Integrated cloud service

Gives access to a cloud service that allows storage and sharing of PDF files. See More

Top Pro

Allows converting MS Office documents to PDFs

You can use the create PDF tool to open any Office document and convert it to an editable PDF or if you're on Windows, you can access the same functionality in Office from the Acrobat tab. See More

Top Pro

Good OCR

Acrobat can recognize characters from both both scanned documents and photos of text. Even if the photos are at an angle. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Available on Windows, OS X, iOS and Android. See More

Top Pro

Can automatically detect form fields

Acrobat has a form wizard that will attempt to overlay appropriate form fields (single-line and multi-line text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc.) over existing layouts. See More

Top Pro

Acrobat can construct a font to match scanned content

Instead of simply trying to match the font to the closest available, Acrobat can attempt to construct a font based on other characters in the document. See More

Top Pro

Clean interface

Acrobat has a three tab interface. There are home, tools and document tabs. The home tab has recently used files as well as files stored in Adobe's cloud services. It will be the first thing shown once you start the program. The tools tab includes access to all Acrobats functionality. From here you can add tabs to panels or use the search to look for tools. See More

Ad

Top Pro

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Specs

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, Linux, IOS, Android
IPv6:Yes
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Based in:Panama

diff-pdf [Václav Slavík]

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Top Con

Crashes often

Trying to offset one page vs the other causes a crash, etc. See More

Top Pro

GPL license

Could be adopted and improved by anyone. See More

Endolith's Experience

This is the one I've been using. It works pretty well if the originals line up, and with multi-page documents, but crashes often and is abandoned by the developer. See More

Top Con

Offset is very slow

If two pages are offset by a large amount, it will take forever to move them one pixel at a time, since each pixel takes a long time to reload. See More

Top Pro

Supports multiple pages well

Shows all pages in the sidebar, lets you compare them all. See More

Top Con

Unsupported

The main Git page says"this repository is provided as-is and the code is not being actively developed.". See More

Top Pro

Whole-page preview in side panel

If pages from the two documents match, they are shown in green on the left side panel, so you can save time focusing only on the pages that don't match. See More

Top Pro

Graphical red/blue diff

Black lines in the original files are shown as red/blue lines, which become black when they are identical. See More

pdf-diff [Joshua Tauberer]

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ComparePDF

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DiffPDF [Commercial version]

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