PDF document comparison - not recognising text with no changes

Report · Oct 24, 2016

Hi, I am trialling Adobe for its PDF document comparison feature.

I have just compared two documents which are largely identical, same formatting etc. If I use the comparison tool for 'text only', then everything comes up as deleted and inserted again and so I can't see what has changed. If I don't tick the 'text only' box, then it's a bit better and recognises some of the same text, but there is a huge amount of highlighting text that is exactly the same as having been reinserted. This means that the process of looking for changes is actually very lengthy and it doesn't save that much time. Can someone please tell me if this is as good as it gets or if I am doing something wrong?

Thank you in advance.

Francis

Report · Oct 24, 2016

Hi Francis,

Greetings! I am sorry to hear that you're facing problem with the new Compare feature. It would be great if you could help us with a few queries that will help us in investigating the issue you're facing:

What is the version of Acrobat Pro DC that you are using?
What is the OS version of your system?
Can you please share the files you are facing issue with, if not confidential?

Thanks,

Adobe Acrobat DC Team.

Getting version of application (Acrobat DC)

Click on 'Help' menu in application
Click on 'About Adobe Acrobat DC…'

Report · Oct 25, 2016

Hi

Thank you for your email below and here are replies to your questions:

1. Version of Acrobat: 2015.020.20039 (see screenshot below)

2. OS version of my system is 10.11.6 (El Capitan, see screenshot below).

3. The files are confidential, however, I have as an example attached the following, which I think illustrate the problem:

i) page 3 of the document, which I have saved as an ‘old’ and ‘new’ version (there is one difference between them which is the £54/£56 value in paragraph 5 (both OCR scanned, ie. not just an image).

ii) a screenshot of the document comparison (text only comparison option not selected), which you will see does not highlight this change in any more than all the other bits which it highlights and which are actually the same.

iii) a screenshot of the document comparison (text only comparison option IS selected), which you will see does not recognise any of the text as being the same.

iv) the saved file of the comparison

I hope this is what you needed, please do let me know if you need anything further. I really need a good pdf comparison tool and if Acrobat can do it then I will use it for my business.

Thank you in advance.

Kind regards

Francis

Report · Sep 06, 2018

Hi,

I encounter the same problem as yours, do you found out a solution for this?

Did Adobe support contacted you?

If you have any email address that i can send to will be a great help.

Thanks