Compare Adobe PDF Documents – Use Cases

PDF file format is a standard for a document exchange today, but it might be hard to compare and find the difference between two PDFs. Learn how users of Compare Suite solve this problem.

Comparing different documents with previous versions to ensure the documents are repopulating each week. This is one of our quality assurance measures.

Nykole Masters, Information Quality Analyst, AHS, Calgary, AB, Canada

Compare Suite definitely makes comparing PDF documents easier. The colour coding of the added, modified, or removed lines makes comparing multiple document quick and painless. The feature that allows you to compare more than two documents is also extremely beneficial because it also us to verify that the data in each of our products is truly refreshed. The similarity percentage indicator is another extremely handy tool. With one quick look, you can tell if the documents are different.

A note from Compare Suite developers

Nykole, I do agree with you about PDFs, they are excellent way to represent information. One knows that PDF document will look exactly the same on any PC and even if printed. Today the actual usage of PDF format is far beyond the purpose it was designed for. People exchange PDF; software products generate report in PDF.

I like that you are using “similarity percentage” data. It is excellent way to find a quick answer about the scale of changes made. Personally, I also find it useful to check out word count information; it is presented on the same info panel as a similar percentage.

Some ideas that might make your work process even more productive:

• You can compare documents with their previous versions. That looks like a routine task; you don’t need to do it via a graphical interface of the program. You can write a script that will run Compare Suite via command line interface. This will automate the process significantly. If you don’t like the idea of finding the right parameters for the command line, check out integration manager, it helps a lot.
• I think you might have faced the problem of false-positive findings. For example, Compare Suite might report that there is a difference between documents, but when you open them you actually see that the difference was only in the date stamp or something similar. There is a possibility to manage such situations, so check out the ideas in my latest article.

Thank you again for your feedback. If you are facing any problems or will need a new function, don’t hesitate to contact us.

We use Compare Suite for comparing various Word, PDF, HTML documents for differences in versions. I also have a few apps that require a comparison tool to be used to tell differences between document versions.

It proves to be a very useful application when I am looking through hundreds of documents that can span many months or even years of age. Compare Suite makes the work all that much easier and much more efficient and neat. I can’t imagine there is another piece of software out there that can do what Compare suite does so excellently. I have really enjoyed having this app in my tool box. Thanks for the great software.

Terry Bennett, Rusted Works Org., Canada

A note from developers

Terry, thank you for the good words you wrote about our software. You are right, today it is not enough to use just MS Word. As long as we deal with Word, PDF, and HTML documents every day we need to have a tool that will allow doing cross-format operations.

In this sense Compare Suite helps as it can compare a Word document with an Adobe PDF, or a plain text file with an HTML document. Thank you for adding Compare Suite to your toolbox.

You mentioned that you use it for the comparison of HTML documents as well. As you know, HTML is on one hand a code with all the tags and on the other hand it is a webpage that we see in the browser. Visual representation might be the same, but the code might be different. In Compare Suite you can compare html files in both ways – as a code and as if the user opened it in a web browser.

Business professional: Laura Lujan, Oral Surgery, Toronto. Typist.

Compare Suite helps typist:

I convert a PDF phone and address listing to text only and then I compare the previous year’s list to the new one to add on new listings and update information for our mailing list.

Compare Suite for easy comparison:

It’s the best one I have found so far. I only need to use it once a year though. It is effective in telling me what has changed, been removed or added from the previous year’s listing. This way I can keep the mailing up to date. We send out many advertising type mailings throughout the year.
I find the standard version works the best and is extremely accurate. I use the unfold option so I can compare the two columns and see exactly how something has changed.

A note from developers:

Laura, thank you very much for your feedback. You’ve found a great application for Compare Suite. As I understood, in this way you can find and remove duplicate records in your address listings.

I have some ideas that you can use to do the job even better:

• In Compare Suite you can make comments about any differences found. In this way you can mark certain differences and return to them later.
• In the File menu there is a reporting function. Use it to generate a HTML report that will include all of the details of your updates.

P.S.

It is not related to the Compare Suite product, but I noticed that you work in an oral surgery, so you or your colleagues might be interested in reviewing these KPIs for dental practice.

Compare PDF helps software tester:

I have to compare customers invoice files in PDF format. I have been using your product for months and I am very content with it. The work is going faster than otherwise and at the end I get a good report which I can use as it is in my test documentation. I did not use all of the functions yet and now I am curious over the extension with the new functions.

Peter Skerletov, A1 Telekom, Vienna, Austria. Software Tester.

A note from the developers:

Peter, thank you for your feedback. Glad you like Compare PDF. The main difference between Compare PDF and Compare Suite is that Compare PDF focuses on Adobe PDF files only. So, if you do compare PDF invoices only, then it will work great for you. If some will be sending you invoices in XML, MS Word, or Excel format, then it makes sense switching to Compare Suite.

There is one thing that you might find especially interesting in Compare Suite, I’m talking about lines ignoring. Let me explain you using an example. What will happen if you will generate the same invoice twice? Normally invoicing software will keep an invoice number the same, but might change the date stamp used in the document. So, in the end of the invoice you might find a small text “Generated 01.09.2014 12:43”.

Such time stamp helps users to identify changed documents, but probably won’t help as a compare program will mark these documents as different ones, as there is actually a difference between them (in the date stamp). Compare Suite can manage this situation, as you can ignore a certain line of the text.

Also, for the application that you mention, you might want to use Reporting functions of Compare PDF and Compare Suite. For example, you can generate a report with changes only that will allow you to share with your team the most important findings.

Use Compare Suite to compare Microsoft Word documents and Adobe PDF files like contracts, commercial proposals, etc.

Business professional: Joao Schlemm, Brasil.

Compare Suite as useful tool:

Comparing Microsoft Word documents and Adobe PDF files like contracts, commercial proposals, etc.

Simple ways for comparison:

User friendly, nice interface, with a lot of cool stuffs like folder comparison and the context menu integration. The support for any kind of different files is another amazing thing like the reporting tool that show a lot of information about the documents or folder comparison. Finally the binary files comparison is a nice tool to prevent malicious ou virus infection.

Use Compare Suite to compare converted documents

Business professional: Glenda H. Jeunelot, Binghamton, NY, Columbian Financial Group, Policy Filing Analyst

Use Compare Suite to compare converted documents:

We are comparing documents that have been converted/migrated to our new system to those as they appeared in the system from which they migrated.

Compare Suite as PDF comparison tool:

I like that I can compare PDF files using Compare Suite while other PDF comparison softwares that I tried didn’t align one document to it’s counterpart in a usable format.
I would like to be able to retain the compare results for future reference as well as retaining the comments.

Use Compare PDF to quickly check differences between PDF files

Business professional: Bryan Davis, Author, western Tennessee

Compare PDF helps Author:

When I turn in a completed manuscript to my publisher, my publisher puts it
in PDF format and sends it back to me. I then proofread it, as does a
proofreader at the publishing house. After the manuscript is corrected, the
publisher sends back a revised PDF. I use Compare PDF to compare the
original PDF to the revised one to make sure all my edits were entered
correctly. I can also check to see what changes the publisher’s proofreader
made. We can go through two or three iterations of this process before the
manuscript it finalized.

Compare PDF as a great time saver:

Before I came across Compare PDF, I had to manually check every page in an
updated PDF file to ensure that edits in my manuscript were applied
properly. Now, with highlighted changes appearing on the screen, I can
scroll through a manuscript very quickly, saving me hours of time. Compare
PDF has been a great time saver for me.