[OS X TeX] Re: OT: Tool for Comparing PDF files ?

[Bill Rowe]

On 3/1/07 at 4:34 PM, osxtex_2 at st.estfiles.de (Steffen Wolfrum)
wrote:

>Does someone know a tool for comparing PDF documents?

>Now and then I make small changes in the source files and would feel
>saver if I'd had a tool that would show me when a resulting PDF has
>/ has not differences (to a PDF that was made before I made the
>changes) …

If all you need is to show two files are different but do not 
need to determine the precise difference, then computing a md5 
hash of both files would suffice. On Mac OS X (and I would 
assume other unix based systems) these is easily done via the 
terminal. Type man md5 in a terminal session for the help file.

If like many on OS X you prefer not to use the terminal, there 
are a variety of third party utilities that achieve the same 
result. I've found File Buddy (not free) to be very effective 
for this purpose.

------------------------- Helpful Info -------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/
List Reminders & Etiquette: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/