Text comparison, page by page

Compare two PDFs

See which lines were added, removed or left alone between two versions of a document — page by page, with the counts stated plainly.

First document (the older one)

Second document (the newer one)

Both documents are read and compared in this tab. Nothing is uploaded.

Short answer: add the old file and the new file, press Compare. You get the added and removed lines per page. Identical text reports no change; two scans report that there is nothing to compare instead of claiming the files match.

What “no differences” really means here

It means the extracted words are identical. A page that swapped a logo, moved a signature box or changed a font reports no difference, because none of those live in the text layer. Read the result as “the wording did not change”, never as “the documents are the same”.

Why scans need OCR first

Extracting text from a photograph of a page returns nothing, so a naive comparison would call two different scans identical. This tool checks both sides for a text layer and stops when neither has one — the honest answer is that it cannot compare pictures.

Comparison questions

What is compared?

The text layer, page by page, line by line. Formatting, images, colours and layout are not compared: a page whose words are identical but whose font changed reports no difference. That limitation is the reason this is a text comparison and not a visual one.

Why does a scanned PDF show no differences?

Because a scan has no text layer — the page is a picture. Both files compare as empty, and the tool refuses rather than reporting “identical”, which would be wrong in a way that matters. OCR the scans first, then compare the OCR output.

How are moved lines reported?

As one removal and one addition. The comparison is line-based and does not try to detect moved blocks, because a heuristic that guesses “moved” can hide a genuine edit.

Is either file uploaded?

No. Both files are parsed with pdf.js in this tab and compared in memory. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Related tools

Add Scriptiii to your Home Screen

  1. Tap the Share button in Safari's toolbar.
  2. Choose Add to Home Screen.
  3. Tap Add — Scriptiii opens full screen from then on.