DiffPDF =========== DiffPDF is used to compare two PDF files. By default the comparison is of the text on each pair of pages, but comparing the appearance of pages is also supported (for example, if a diagram is changed or a paragraph reformatted). It is also possible to compare particular pages or page ranges. For example, if there are two versions of a PDF file, one with pages 1-12 and the other with pages 1-13 because of an extra page having been added as page 4, they can be compared by specifying two page ranges, 1-12 for the first and 1-3, 5-13 for the second. This will make DiffPDF compare pages in the pairs (1, 1), (2, 2), (3, 3), (4, 5), (5, 6), and so on, to (12, 13). A couple of example PDF files are provided online so that you can try it out. PDF files can be loaded from the GUI (by pressing the File #1 and File #2 buttons), or by specifying them on the command line. More information is available in the program's tooltips and About box. Compiling and Installing DiffPDF ================================ Prerequisites: A C++ compiler, the Qt 4 libraries (I test with Qt 4.7 and Qt 4.6. Earlier Qt's may work although Qt 4.4 and 4.5 will at least need a compiler with tr1 support), and the Poppler libraries (including Poppler's Qt 4 headers). Linux and BSD users should be able to get everything through their package management system---and some distros already include diffpdf so you don't even have to build it. Mac OS X users can get a compiler by installing Xcode; you'll need to get Qt and Poppler separately. 1. Unpack the archive file, diffpdf-XXX.tar.gz 2. Change directory to diffpdf-XXX 3. Run qmake # On some systems, e.g., Fedora or Ubuntu, run qmake-qt4 On Mac OS X use: qmake spec=macx-g++ 4. Run make 5. Copy or soft-link the diffpdf executable to somewhere on your PATH That's it! Running DiffPDF =============== A pair of tiny example files are available: http://www.qtrac.eu/boson1.pdf and http://www.qtrac.eu/boson2.pdf. You can use these to see the difference between text and appearance comparisons and to get a feel for how DiffPDF works. If you hit a bug, please report it to mark@qtrac.eu. Be sure to include "DiffPDF" in the subject line and specify the version you are using and details of your system, e.g., operating system name and version, compiler name and version, Qt library version, Poppler library version. License ======= This program was written by Mark Summerfield. Copyright (c) 2008-11 Qtrac Ltd. All rights reserved. This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or (at your option), any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License (in file gpl-2.0.txt) for more details.
