com­pare­pdf­cmd

Use com­pare­pdf­cmd to compare two PDF files using the command line. In a console (i.e., in a Command Prompt window opened by running cmd.exe) enter, e.g., com­pare­pdf­cmd.exe -r report.pdf old.pdf new.pdf. If there are any differences report.pdf will be output with each pair of pages from old.pdf and new.pdf shown side-by-side with differences color highlighted (as with a highlighter pen).

This commercial console (command line) program for Windows is ideal for testing, quality assurance, scripted comparisons, and regression testing. It is fast and cloud-free: com­pare­pdf­cmd runs on your own computer without the size or page limits of online tools—some customers compare PDFs with thousands of pages. Customers include publishers, banks, insurers, and Governments.

com­pare­pdf­cmd can say whether two PDFs—or two folders of PDFs—are the same or different, and it can optionally output one or more reports that show any differences. The reports can be output in PDF format, or as PNG images, or in CSV format suitable for spreadsheets or regression testing, or JSON or XML format.

Comparisons can be made based purely on the text regardless of margins and word-wrap, or based on appearance (which accounts for fonts, colors, layout, diagrams, images, etc.)

If you require an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) tool, use DiffPDF.