Across my last 15 case files, the time sink is reconciling incoming pleadings and ensuring the stamped, paginated mast…
Open Adobe Acrobat on your computer.
Go to Tools and select Compare Files.
Click Select File under 'Compare' and choose your first PDF (the older or original version).
Click Select File under 'With' and choose your second PDF (the newer or revised version).
Click Compare to start the comparison.
Review the results in the comparison summary and use the side-by-side view to examine highlighted differences.
Best practiceFor best results, avoid using scanned PDFs as input files, as text recognition may be inconsistent.
You can filter the comparison results to focus on text, images, or formatting changes for a clearer review.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
Compare Files fails if one or both of your PDF documents have security settings that prevent changes or viewing. Acrobat cannot access the content to compare it. You need to remove these security settings from both files before trying to compare them.
The 'Compare text only' option tells Acrobat to ignore any images or graphics in your documents. It will only look for differences in the written words. This is useful if you just want to check text changes and don't care about how pictures have moved or changed.
Compare Files is perfect for this. You would select your original contract as the 'old' document and the revised one as the 'new' document. Acrobat will then show you a summary of all additions, deletions, and changes. You can easily navigate through each specific change to review what has been altered in the contract.