PDiff Express Comparing texts has never been this easy.

Compare two PDF documents - fast, incredibly easy and reliably. Just drop two PDF icons into the PDiff window… and instantly see the comparison results. Comparing texts has never been this easy.

What exactly has changed, what is really the same? How often do you get back a document and are still uncertain about the changes? Why is it such a hard task to juggle with revisions edited by many authors? If you just want to see what happened, then PDiff Express is made for you.

PDiff Express allows you to compare the content of two PDFs in order to pinpoint all textual changes. Just drag and drop two versions into PDiff and you will see all differences at a glance. This still works if fonts, layout, hyphenation or even page breaks were altered.

PDiff Express is an ideal solution to compare versions of your

important office documents
mission critical technical manuals
legal texts and business contracts
financial reports
manuscripts and thesis texts
scientific articles, reports, and proceedings
fictional books and non-fiction books
copywriting to press-ready layout

Key Features

fast and reliable PDF text comparison for multipage documents
highlighting of differences (changes, insertions, and deletions) in the PDF files
text synopsis display with synchronized text and highlighted differences
synchronized side-by-side display of two PDFs: see corresponding words in all displays by hovering with the mouse over the text
comparison handles layout changes (e.g. single vs. multi column), font, size and style changes, added hyphenation and different page breaks
spot light display to distinguish text from non-text areas
reformatting of text according to layout of the other document
full text search function
easy-to-use interface for best user experience
full Unicode support for international scripts

Version History

Version 2.3.3 (macOS only):

Fix: Compatibility with new Apple M1 chip

Version 2.3.2 (macOS only):

Fix: Compatibility with macOS Big Sur

Version 2.3.1 (macOS only):

Fix: Fixed a possible crash for PDF files containing characters with zero height or width

Version 2.3.0:

NEW: Demo report (one page) for in-app purchase “Annotated PDF Reports”
NEW: List of page thumbnails for PDF A and PDF B
- Overview of the entire document and current page
- Fast page navigation
- Page error counter on page thumbnails
- Display of excluded pages (orange “X”)
NEW: Mouse wheel support for scrolling between PDF pages facilitates fast reviewing of long documents
NEW: Support for macOS Dark Mode
NEW: Holding the ALT key at program start shows a dialog to reset all saved window positions and layouts.
Fix: Position of word marker and displayed page when stepping through the synopsis table
Fix: Issues with resizing exclusion boxes boxes
Fix: GUI reactivity for extremely large PDF files (> 4000 pages)

Version 2.2.4:

FREEMIUM LICENCE MODEL WITH IN-APP PURCHASE
- free version compares PDF files with up to 3 pages (max. 1000 words)
- in-app purchase for unlimited PDF input (free upgrade for PDiff Express 1.x users)
- in-app purchase for comparison reports as annotated PDFs
thumbnail widget of all differences for quick overview and navigation
menu item Windows > Differences for a navigable list of differences including differences per character
menu item Windows > Separate Windows supports splitting into separate windows to work in dual monitor environments
retina display support

Version 1.7.0:

New toolbar
New menu item View > Show special characters
New menu item View > Show text flow
Added a statistic widget to the window status bar
Fixed a crash in conjunction with some accessibility features of OS X 10.8 and OS X 10.9 turned on (System Preferences > Accessibility)
Compatibility with OS X 10.10

Version 1.6.2:

Improved performance for long documents
Fix for PDFs with problematic characters (empty quads)

Version 1.6.1:

Compatibility with OS X 10.9.1
Minor changes and improvements

Version 1.6:

Compatibility with OS X 10.9
Exclusion rects (e.g. for page headers and footers): In the PDF preview pane, click and hold at the first corner then drag to the second corner. Right click an exclusion rect for more options
Page ranges (right click on the PDF preview pane)
Additional settings, esp. adjustable colors
Append documents (File menu) allows to compare texts distributed over multiple files

Version 1.5:

New parameter to prevent undesired synchronization of differences at frequent short word sequences (e.g. “and”, “by the”, …)
Added an alert for PDFs without extractable text
New menu items File > Open Document A/B to open files with a file chooser dialog in addition to existing drag ‘n drop mechanism

Version 1.4:

Fixed a memory leak

Version 1.3:

Speed-up by factor 3 or more (depending on number of CPU cores)

Version 1.2:

Fix for media box origin different from (0,0)

Version 1.1:

Improved display of differences only (switch under the text synopsis display). Hover over a diff in the lower window pane to jump directly to its position in the PDF.
Additional GUI elements

Version 1.0:

Initial release

Cloudless

All our products work without the cloud

Learn more ›

Howto

Compare PDF: 10 insider tips how to get the best results

16 Sep 2022

Our 10 insider tips are the condensate from years of work in the field PDF comparison and the feedback from renowned customers in all industries. We are happy to share this secret knowledge with you.

More ›

PDiff Express Comparing texts has never been this easy.

Key Features

Interface Languages

Available on Microsoft Store

Available on Mac App Store

Need more features?

Version History

Howto

Compare PDF: 10 insider tips how to get the best results

16 Sep 2022