Collect and compare earlier and current artwork versions into a single PDF to analyze changes in themes, affect, or te…
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 pictures and other graphics when comparing two PDFs. It focuses only on the words. This is useful if you only care about text changes and not visual layout changes, making the comparison faster and clearer for text-heavy documents.
Compare Files fails with a security error because one or both of your PDF documents are protected. These security settings prevent Acrobat from reading and comparing their content. To fix this, you need to remove the protection from both files first. This ensures Acrobat has full access to analyze the documents for differences.
When comparing a report and a spreadsheet, Compare Files uses different modes. For reports, it might highlight text changes. For spreadsheets, it has a 'Reports/Spreadsheets' mode that is designed to detect cell-level changes. Acrobat will try to autodetect the best mode, but you can also choose it. The results will still open as a summary page, letting you navigate through changes.
| Mode | Purpose | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Autodetect | Acrobat automatically chooses the best comparison method based on the document type. | General documents, when you are unsure which mode to pick. |
| Presentation Decks | Optimized for finding changes in slide-based documents, like PowerPoint presentations saved as PDFs. | Slides, presentations, and visual documents where layout and image changes are key. |