Spot every change between two PDF versions — differences are painted red on a page-by-page diff. Free in your browser — no sign-up, no watermarks.
How to compare two PDFs
- Click Choose files and select exactly two PDFs — the original first, then the revised version.
- No settings needed — every page pair is rendered and compared pixel by pixel automatically.
- Press Compare PDFs. Processing runs with a live progress indicator.
- Open the download page to save your files individually or grab everything as a single ZIP.
Why compare PDFs visually?
Someone sends back "the same document with small changes" — and you need to know exactly what moved. Add the original and the revised file, and each page pair is compared pixel by pixel: unchanged content is dimmed to gray, every difference is painted red. Perfect for contract revisions, form updates and layout checks.
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What this tool preserves — and what it changes
✓ Preserved
- Both input files — the output is a fresh set of PNG diff images, one per page pair
- Every kind of visible change: the comparison is pixel-based (pages rendered at 96 DPI), so it works on scans and images, not just born-digital text
↺ Changed
- Unchanged content is dimmed to light gray; pixels that differ are painted solid red
- A page counts as "different" only above an absolute floor of 12 changed pixels — a single edited digit registers, a few stray antialiasing pixels do not
- The summary reports how many of the pages differ, using the same pixel count that paints the red
Known limits & edge cases
- Exactly two PDFs are required — the original first, then the revision
- Pages with a different size or orientation (A4 vs Letter, portrait vs landscape) are flagged as a size mismatch and shown as a two-page overlay instead of a meaningless all-red diff
- When page counts differ, the extra pages are compared against a blank page, so their entire content shows up as a difference
Engine: pdf.js renders both files; differences are painted onto per-page diff images. These statements describe the engine as shipped on 2026-10-02 — behaviour changes are recorded in the changelog.
About the formats
Finding what changed when nobody marked the changes
“Same document, minor updates” is a claim, not a fact. This tool renders both PDFs and compares every page pair pixel by pixel, producing difference images where changes glow against the unchanged content — catching not just edited sentences but the changes text-diffing misses entirely: an adjusted number in a table, a swapped logo, a shifted layout, a figure quietly replaced.
Load the original first, the revised version second, and read the output like an X-ray: dark pages are identical, highlighted regions are your review list. It’s the fast answer for contract redlines nobody tracked, invoice “corrections,” updated spec sheets and any before/after where trust needs verification. Pixel comparison is thorough by nature — even a small font substitution lights up, which is precisely the kind of silent change worth noticing.
Frequently asked questions
Is this Compare PDF Files tool free?
Yes — completely free, with no sign-up, no watermarks and no daily quota. Processing happens in this browser, so the practical limit is the memory available on your device.
Can I process multiple PDF files at once?
Compare works on exactly two files at a time — the original and the revised version. To check several revisions, run the comparison once per pair.
How are the two files compared?
Visually: each page pair is rendered and compared pixel by pixel, so any change — text edits, moved images, layout shifts — shows up in red on the diff image. It is a visual comparison, not a word-by-word text diff, which also means it works on scanned documents.
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