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How to compare two versions of a PDF

Find what changed between two drafts of a contract or report, without reading both side by side line by line.

PDF100 team4 min read

Compare PDFTry it while you read: Highlight the text differences between two PDF versions.Open tool

A counterparty sends back "the same contract with a couple of tweaks". Finding those tweaks by eye across 30 pages is slow and easy to get wrong.

Text comparison

Compare PDF extracts the text from both files and reports what was added, removed or changed. It focuses on the words, so differences in layout or fonts do not drown out real edits.

Get better results

  • Both files need a real text layer. Run OCR PDF on scanned versions first.
  • Compare consecutive versions rather than the first and the last draft, so each set of changes stays readable.
  • Use Word Count for a quick sense of how much a document grew or shrank.

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