PDF compare on linux command line
comparison, ghostscript, linux, pdf
Solution
Done in 2 lines with (the allmighty) imagemagick and pdftk:
compare -verbose -debug coder $PDF_1 $PDF_2 -compose src $OUT_FILE.tmp
pdftk $OUT_FILE.tmp background $PDF_1 output $OUT_FILE
The options -verbose and -debug are optional.
- compare creates a PDF with the diff as red pixels.
- pdftk merges the diff-pdf with background PDF_1
Problem
I'm looking for a Linux command line tool to compare two PDF files and save the diffs to a PDF outfile. The tool should create diff-pdf's in a batch-process. The PDF files are construction plans, so pure text-compare doesn't work. Something like: ``` <tool> file1.pdf file2.pdf -o diff-out.pdf ``` Most of the tools I found convert the PDFs to images and compare them, but only with a GUI. Any other solution is also welcome.