How to check if PDF was edited or not.

Report · Sep 29, 2020

We need program to check if PDF was edited or not. For example bank statement. Is it original or edited. Do you have program for this? Maybe Adobe Pro? We need to check not our document, but clients bank statement to be sure that income is real and PDF is not edited with fake income. So maybe you have or know program which can do this?

Report · Sep 29, 2020

Hi!

I hope you are doing well.

There is no sure proof way to determine if a generic PDF file is modified. If you go to the document properties of a PDF file (control or command d), if the proper metadata is available, it will list the creation date and time and modified date and time.

This can help you determine if a pdf file has been modified since creation. However, it is not foolproof. This metadata is not secured.

The easiest way to detect if a file has been modified to digitally sign the document. Reader and Acrobat will report if the document has been changed since it was signed.

For detailed information about the signature, please see this article: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/certificate-based-signatures.html

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Anand Sri.

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Report · Sep 29, 2020

Wow.

Forensic accounting. Interesting question. You suspect your client is cheating with digital forgeries!

Adding to Anand's reply above, one thing to note: you will see a modified date in the metadata (File / Properties / Description tab) not just because the content was edited (such as adding $10,000 to the bank balance), but also if any highlighting or comments were added to the file.

Example: in my bank statements, I add comments to them to flag major purchases or items that have been reconciled with our accounting system. My comments would trigger that the file was modified, yet no content had been edited.

Since the content of PDFs can be edited, it's difficult for a program to track what WAS there and what IS there now. I don't know of any tools that can track or identify where the content has changed, but if you knew someone with PDF coding experience, they might be able to spot some digital paper trails in the source code of the file itself. (Maybe one of our braniac PDF coders on this forum will chime in on this.)

If you could get ahold of the bank's original version (such as redownload a fresh copy of the PDF, or via warrant request PDFs from the bank itself), you could then use Acrobat Pro's Compare utility. Select both PDFs, click the button, and it compares the differences between the 2 documents, including formatting and edited content. But this works only if you have the original PDF.

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Report · Mar 30, 2024

You need to compare it with your original. Prints can be compared in 2 manners.

1) you scan both prints in and you overlay the prints page per page digitally. They should optically match. Where they do not match, there was a modification.

2) you campare page by page manually and check if anything did change.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer

Report · May 26, 2024

Open a document for viewing on microsoft edge.
1. In the top right click the Setting button.
A drawer opens from the right-hand side with 3 tabs.
The View document properties shows all actions taken on the document, including when and by whom.