The contractor sent revised shop drawings that could shift several millwork units. Install starts tomorrow and I’m the…
Open Adobe Acrobat Pro on your computer.
Go to the Tools pane and select Compare Files.
In the Compare Files window, click Select File on the left to choose the older version of your PDF.
Click Select File on the right to choose the newer version of your PDF.
Click Compare to start the comparison process.
Review the summary report that appears, which highlights all text and graphic differences between the two files.
Best practiceFor best results, avoid using scanned PDFs as input, since Acrobat compares text and graphics most accurately with digitally generated files.
Use the side-by-side view and navigation tools to examine each change in detail, including both textual edits and visual modifications.
Best practiceYou can focus the comparison on text, graphics, or both by adjusting the settings before running the comparison.
After comparing, use the navigation panel to quickly jump between each detected change in your PDFs.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
The 'Compare text only' option tells Acrobat to ignore all images and graphics in your Shop Drawings. It will only look for differences in the written words. This is useful if you only care about text changes and not visual updates.
You cannot compare Shop Drawings if they have security settings. This means the files are protected, for example, to stop people from changing them. Acrobat cannot read the files to find differences when they are protected. To compare them, you must first remove these security settings from both PDF files. Look for the 'Protect' tool in Acrobat to do this.
If your Shop Drawing has many pictures, the 'Autodetect' mode is usually the best choice. This mode automatically figures out the best way to compare your files. It will look at both text and graphics to show you all the changes, ensuring you don't miss any visual updates in the drawings.
| Mode | What it does | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Autodetect | Automatically chooses the best way to compare all content (text, images, layout). | General documents like Shop Drawings, presentations, or any mixed content. |
| Reports/Spreadsheets | Optimized for comparing data in tables and structured documents. | Financial reports, data tables, or documents with many numbers in rows and columns. |