Does Adobe have a feature to detect a document has been altered from its original?

[Frank5FE3]

Does anyone know if Adobe has a way to detect a document has been altered from its original content? For example, I am an auditor and review tax forms that I now receive electronically; I used to get a paper copy and was able to tell if something was changed (in case someone white-out the numbers, etc.) but this has changed. I am wondering, if Adobe has a way to detect a tax form, or any PDF document, has been changed/altered from its original version? I am on the receiving end, not the the generating person, so I can't compare documents (original and copy of the same document). I have searched Adobe Help Support but can't find an answer, or maybe there isn't one.

[LinSims]

Let me move this to the Acrobat forum for you, which is the appropriate forum for your question.

The Using the Community forum is for help in using the Adobe Support Community forums, not for help with specific programs. Product questions should be posted in the associated product community.

I'm not an expert in Acrobat (I use it to create final documents or to run reviews), but I rather doubt this is possible. I'll be interested to learn if I'm wrong.

[Frank5FE3]

Thank you for placing my question in the correct area; this is my first time ever using a forum. And I was trying to figure how and where to pose my question. So thanks a bunch!

Frank

[try67]

Yes, a digital signature field. If you sign the file and then send it to someone else, if that person edits the file in any way your signature becomes invalidated and you'll know the file has been edited.

[Frank5FE3]

Thank you for responding. My question is for when I get a document that another person/agency has created (IRS), and then that document received by the first receiving person/someone, and then that person/someone alters the document, and then I receive that altered document for review; is there a way to detect this document was altered? I didn't create it, the IRS did, then the person/someone else alters it, and sends it to someone else (me).

[try67]

It's usually not possible to change anything in such forms, except for the values of the fields in them.

You can try the Compare Documents features (under View), but I'm not sure that will work on form fields.

To compare those you can export the form data from both files and then do a plain-text comparison, outside of Acrobat.

[try67]

Update: Compare Documents does seem to identify changes made to form fields, although it does not indicate it very clearly.

[Frank5FE3]

Hello and thank you for taking the time and effort to respond to my inquiry here; I really appreciate it. 

When I think of the comparing documents feature from Adobe, I think of having an original version and another to compare it with. Since I am getting one document (if altered), how would the compare document feature in Adobe work with just the one document I receive?

[try67]

You only have one version of the file? In that case I don't think you can do it. Maybe with some forensic tools that can analyze the document's revision history, but not with Acrobat.