About comparing PDFs
When a contract, policy or drawing comes back with changes and no tracked changes, finding what was altered by reading both copies side by side is slow and unreliable. This tool does the checking for you and gives you a report PDF with two parts. The text comparison lists, page by page, the words and lines that were added, removed or changed, so you can see that a payment term moved from 30 to 60 days without reading every clause. The visual overlay places each page of the revised version over the original and highlights the areas that differ, which catches changes the text comparison cannot, such as a moved logo, a new signature line, a changed table border or edits in a drawing. Comparing works best when both files have real text; for scans, run OCR PDF on each first so the text comparison has something to read. If pages were added or removed, later pages may show as changed, so read the report from the start.
Limits: available on Pro and Business, not on Free; Pro starts with a 14-day free trial. Exactly 2 PDFs per task, each up to 200 MB on Pro and 500 MB on Business, with up to 2,000 pages.
Privacy: your files are uploaded over an encrypted connection to our UK servers, processed automatically with no person opening them, and deleted within 2 hours, or straight away with Delete now.
How to use the PDF tools: Step-by-step help with every tool, limits and your files.
Compare PDFs: frequently asked questions
What does the comparison report show?
A list of text differences for each page and a visual overlay that highlights where the page content changed.
Can I compare scanned documents?
The visual overlay works on scans. For the text comparison, run OCR PDF on both files first.
Can I compare a Word file with a PDF?
Convert the Word file with Word to PDF first, then compare the two PDFs.
Which file should I add first?
Add the original first and the newer version second, so additions and removals are reported the right way round.