How to compare two versions of a contract
A contract comes back marked "final", with "a few small changes". Rereading thirty pages side by side is slow, and a changed number or a dropped "not" is easy to miss. Comparing the two PDFs shows every word that was added or removed, so you can read the changes instead of the whole document.
Open Compare PDFSee exactly what changed between two versions, word by word.
Compare two PDFs step by step
- Open Compare PDF. Compare is part of Papermint Premium.
- Add the version you sent as the first file and the version you got back as the second.
- Select Compare documents. You see how many words were added and removed, and the differences page by page.
- Switch to Side by side to look at the two versions next to each other, and download the report to keep or share.
What to look for
- Numbers and dates: prices, notice periods, payment terms, deadlines.
- Small words that flip the meaning: "not", "may" against "must", "and" against "or".
- Defined terms: a changed definition changes every clause that uses it.
- Removed text: deletions are easy to overlook when you read only the new version.
Before you start
- Scanned versions need OCR first. Compare reads the text in the files, and a scan is a picture of text. Run each scan through OCR PDF, then compare the searchable copies.
- Protected files need their passwords entered.
- Layout changes are not differences. Compare looks at the words, so a new font or reflowed paragraph does not count as a change.
Happy with the changes? Sign PDF lets you sign it without printing. If the final copy goes to someone who should not see everything in it, Redact PDF removes the parts they should not see.