comparepdfcmd comparepdfcmd is a fast commercial Windows command line tool for PDF comparison. It is ideal for Quality Assurance and for automated testing. Comparisons are done on your own computer to protect your privacy. 198 comparepdfcmd Software Qtrac Ltd. OnlineOnly 300913524

Qtrac Ltd.

C:\> com­pare­pdf­cmd.exe

Legal copies of our software are only available from www.qtrac.eu, www.qtrac.uk, www.diffpdf.com, and diffpdf.appspot.com, and can only be bought via MyCommerce/ShareIT.

Try (free for 20 days) or Buy ($198 USD)

You can try com­pare­pdf­cmd free for up to 20 days using a trial license key. And you can buy a full license key for com­pare­pdf­cmd that has no time limit for $198 USD plus local sales tax (or local equivalent for many major currencies) using the secure MyCommerce platform. Tiered price discounts are applied if you buy at least 5 license keys—these are shown when you click Buy Now. (Purchasing departments: com­pare­pdf­cmd's Product ID is 300913524.)

com­pare­pdf­cmd is a 64-bit application that will work on 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and later, on computers that have x86-compatible processors, i.e., almost all desktop and laptop computers. (If you require a 32-bit application, use diffpdfc.)

To get a free trial:

1. On the computer you want to use, download com­pare­pdf­cmd-2.3.1.zip (8.4MB; MD5 d038f2b2c7e757e6d7cecf893fb19c8f).
2. Unzip the package into any convenient empty folder.
3. In a console (i.e., in a Command Prompt window opened by running cmd.exe), change directory into com­pare­pdf­cmd's folder and run:

   com­pare­pdf­cmd.exe try
   

   This will acquire a free trial license key over the internet and then register it. The program will then be ready to use.

You will probably find it convenient to add com­pare­pdf­cmd to your PATH. How to do this is explained in the manual, along with full details of all com­pare­pdf­cmd's features. The manual is included in the package and can also be viewed online: com­pare­pdf­cmd2.pdf (~233 KB).

If you want to buy one or more licenses, visit Buy Now or run com­pare­pdf­cmd.exe buy. Once you've completed your purchase the confirmation page will show an Order ID. The Order ID and a “get key” link will be emailed to you. You can then use the Order ID or the link to acquire as many license keys as you purchased on each computer you want to use. Once you have bought a license, run com­pare­pdf­cmd.exe getkey order-id to acquire the key, and then com­pare­pdf­cmd.exe register key to register it.

We recommend trying before buying, since license key purchases can't be refunded.

Note that each free trial and full license key is tied to the particular computer it is acquired on. Each such license key is valid for all minor and patch versions (e.g., if acquired for version 2, it is valid for all 2.x.y versions). There is no time limit for full license keys—providing the firmware and hardware (and how Windows reports it)—don't change. Annual keys are valid for all minor and patch versions (from 2.1.0), and have a one year time limit. They are not tied to any particular computer. Annual keys are only available in selected countries to selected customers, and have a minimum order, so the minimum purchase is at least $1,800 USD; their Product ID is 300917580.

All license types are governed by the com­pare­pdf­cmd-license.pdf (42 KB).

If you want to automate lots of PDF comparisons you might find it helpful to output reports in .pdf, .csv, .json, or .xml format and to use our free retest console (command line) program for Windows and Unix. Retest makes it simple to automate black box regression testing.

Example Usages

Here is one example use of the program:

C:\Users\me>com­pare­pdf­cmd -v -s ^
-r report.pdf ^
oldfile.pdf newfile.pdf
Wrote "report.pdf"

Here the two PDFs have some different text (compared word-by-word which is the default), and because of the -r or --report option, the differences are shown highlighted in the file report.pdf. In addition, due to the -s or --show option, the report.pdf differences report will be shown in your PDF reader. The message was output because the -v or --verbose option was used. If they had the same texts the output on the console would have been Same, no report would have been produced, and no report would be shown in your PDF reader.

Note that ^ is the Windows line continuation character; you don't need it/them if you write the whole command as a single line.

Here is another example use of the program:

C:\Users\me>com­pare­pdf­cmd -f pdf ^
-R reportdir -S summary.csv ^
oldpdfdir newpdfdir

This run compares each PDF file in the oldpdfdir directory with a PDF file in the newpdfdir directory that has the same name (if there is one). For each pair of PDFs that differ, it produces the requested report in the reportdir with the same name as the original files, and with the differences highlighted. In addition it produces a summary of the differences in the file summary.csv.

Here is an example use with a custom configuration file:

C:\Users\me>com­pare­pdf­cmd -C myconfig.ini ^
-r diff.csv file1.pdf file2.pdf

This run reads the configuration from myconfig.ini and outputs a CSV difference report if file1.pdf is different from file2.pdf. The configuration file need only contain those options which you want to set to non-default values. Every configuration file option is explained in the manual.

For a summary of all the command line options run either of these commands:

C:\Users\me>com­pare­pdf­cmd -h
C:\Users\me>com­pare­pdf­cmd --help

All the command line options and configuration file options are listed and explained in the manual: com­pare­pdf­cmd2.pdf (~218 KB). This can also be viewed using the program using either of these commands:

C:\Users\me>com­pare­pdf­cmd -m
C:\Users\me>com­pare­pdf­cmd --manual

Example Report (PDF format)

Here is an extract of a screenshot of a PDF report:

Red change bars in the left margin indicate where changes are, and changes are highlighted by coloring them as if with a highlighter pen.

Old Versions

We always recommend using the most recent release. (For details of the changes between versions, see the Changes page.) We will provide earlier versions to customers on request.

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