Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs

github.com

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs

#21

On Windows I was quite happy with DiffPDF[1]. As far as I remember there used to be an older open source version as well. But I could not found it on first glance. [1] https://www.qtrac.eu/diffpdf.html

diffpdf doesn't look very pretty but it sure is useful. I use it for all my legal paperwork. Glad OP is contributing to this space.

https://screenshots.debian.net/package/diffpdf

Re: Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs

#22
post #16
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most important for me is the ability to ignore page boundaries. Removing the first half of the first page of one source document shouldn't produce differences on all following pages.

Thanks for the feedback. Should the user specify the page boundaries or does pdf-diff automatically checks where page boundaries are?

It's automatic. As if there were no page boundaries, like in text diffs). But for a paged-based diff-tool it would already be quite useful, if the user could interactively specify pages to ignore, so that the comparison can start again where both docs are the same (e.g. at the start of the next chapter).

Re: Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs

#23
post #16
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most important for me is the ability to ignore page boundaries. Removing the first half of the first page of one source document shouldn't produce differences on all following pages.

Thanks for the feedback. Should the user specify the page boundaries or does pdf-diff automatically checks where page boundaries are?

> It's automatic. As if there were no page boundaries, like in text diffs). But for a paged-based diff-tool it would already be quite useful, if the user could interactively specify pages to ignore, so that the comparison can start again where both docs are the same (e.g. at the start of the next chapter).

Gotcha. I might transform this project from a command-line only to a visual tool. I could implement that, thanks for the idea. I can actually have some sections of the PDF ignored.

Re: Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs

#29
Nice work! We had to solve this problem a few years ago and iterated through a bunch of technical solutions and rabbit holes.

Funnily enough, the best performing solution for users was having the two PDFs rendered as images with a slider to "switch" between them, and relying on the human eye to spot the differences.

Re: Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs

#30
post #29

Nice work! We had to solve this problem a few years ago and iterated through a bunch of technical solutions and rabbit holes. Funnily enough, the best performing solution for users was having the two PDFs rendered as images with a slider to "switch" between them, and relying on the human eye to spot the differences.

Thank you! :) you do not know how many issues I spotted on older books I formatted. Paragraphes randomly moved on the top, images streched as I was build more pdf.. all human errors that can be - at least - spotted.
Post reply on HN