I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust.....
On 7/9/2026 10:03 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust.....
Not directly answering your question:
Firstly, tell your lawyers to separate text from images
and graphs. All images and graphs should be listed as
appendixes. Then it will easier for you to just first
compare the text than images.
The problem is: what if your lawyers refuse to do it? :)
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
On 7/9/2026 10:03 AM, Stan Brown wrote:
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
Is the PDF one of those hybrid ones, where a docx is inside the PDF ? LibreOffice probably cannot read that, but Microsoft Office might.
On 07/09/2026 10:03 AM, Stan Brown wrote:
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
Prior to changing or during the 'change' process was there discussion of what needed to be changed(their recommendation or yours).
In article <MPG.44b94a10121923519904c2@news.individual.net>, someone@example.com says...
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office >gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the >possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
AI can do this, but you have to be very specific what you ask for, or
you'll get only semantic differences rather than textual ones.
See this: https://share.gemini.google/PWBcw5KnpPyp
Philip Herlihy wrote:
AI can do this, but you have to be very specific what you ask for
And you have to trust that your private PDFs won't end-up as part of its training dataset.
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:33:37 +0100, Philip Herlihy wrote:
In article <MPG.44b94a10121923519904c2@news.individual.net>,
someone@example.com says...
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
AI can do this, but you have to be very specific what you ask for, or
you'll get only semantic differences rather than textual ones.
See this: https://share.gemini.google/PWBcw5KnpPyp
I tried a few minutes ago at Winston's suggestion, but Word will not
open the PDFs so I can't convert them to Word format. I've used
Word's compare tool in the past, but since I can't get the PDFs into
Word format ...
I don't think I mentioned that I have Word 2010. Possibly if I had a
later version it would open the PDFs, but I can't see paying the cost
of a new Office for something I've needed once in sixteen years and
probably won't need for another sixteen. :-)
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
[And no uploading to websites.]
https://web.archive.org/web/20141018214421/http://www.componentsoftware.com/Products/CSDiff
I would upload to Google NotebookLM and let the AI do the comparison: https://notebooklm.google/
Office 2024 for $55
<https://www.stacksocial.com/sales/microsoft-office-2024-professional-plus>
I would upload to Google NotebookLM and let the AI do the comparison: https://notebooklm.google/
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:09:23 -0500, sticks wrote:
Office 2024 for $55
<https://www.stacksocial.com/sales/microsoft-office-2024-professional-plus>
I've been aware of Stack Social's "fire sales", but have always been
nervous because it seemed like a substantial minority of purchasers
get non-working licenses.
But I'm torn. There are a few features of newer Excel that I'd like
to try, though they're not must-haves. $54.99 is just the cost of a
meal at a restaurant these days, so that doesn't seem like a big
obstacle.
One thing does worry me, though. I don't have a Microsoft account.
The page says "This licensing type will be connected with your actual
device, NOT your Microsoft account." I guess that means I don't need
a Microsoft account to activate it. But what about downloading the
installer?
On Fri, 7/10/2026 8:58 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
Philip Herlihy wrote:
While this process is not OCR, the output is just as miserable
to look at as OCR output.
If I ran "diff" over the two output files, it would likely be rough going, especially if the pagination was changed even a little bit.
It would really be better to get the docx with change bars.
Paul
But if you're suggesting I look at the document versions to see if my
changes have been done, did that before posting. In too many
instances, the paralegal or secretary made further mistakes in making
the corrections I pointed out, for instance misspelling a legatee's
name in a new way. I can point those out, and I have. But my concern
is undiscussed changes she may have made, perhaps through
carelessness. Some sort of diff seems the only reliable way to find
out if she did that.
Stan Brown wrote:
[snip]
But if you're suggesting I look at the document versions to see if my
changes have been done,ÿ did that before posting. In too many
instances, the paralegal or secretary made further mistakes in making
the corrections I pointed out, for instance misspelling a legatee's
name inÿ a new way. I can point those out, and I have. But my concern
is undiscussed changes she may have made, perhaps through
carelessness. Some sort of diff seems the only reliable way to find
out if she did that.
When I did computer support some of my clients were solicitors.ÿ The
were almost always very disorganised and completely inept when using computers.ÿ That was 10 years ago, but I doubt there has been much improvement since then.
For example, in your case the further mistakes in correcting an existing mistake may arise because a typist simply re-typed the whole document
from scratch!
Have you raised your concerns with somebody senior?ÿ i.e. not the
paralegal who used the computer?
Some solicitors use a document management program, so any underlying
Word document may contain fields which are filled from the client
database with anything from the client's name to whole boilerplate paragraphs.ÿ Thus the only human-readable output format may well be a
PDF file.
If your solicitor can provide "before" and "after" versions of the
document in a form which you can use, there may be a (significant) cost.
If not, your only option may be to change solicitor, citing their
inability to provide files for automated comparison and their propensity
to add further mistakes when making corrections.ÿ If you go down this
route it may be worth asking competing solicitors how they would resolve your difficulty - without mentioning the current firm (I think they do
talk to each other!)
A less costly option may be to print out all 80 pages of both the
"before" and "after" versions, so that you and a trusted colleague can
read them aloud together - possibly each person taking alternate
sentences.ÿ That could take 40 hours, so it gives you a budget for doing
the work.
On Thu, 9 Jul 2026 11:59:26 -0400, ....winston wrote:
On 07/09/2026 10:03 AM, Stan Brown wrote:
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
Prior to changing or during the 'change' process was there discussion of
what needed to be changed(their recommendation or yours).
Not sure where you're going with this. There was indeed discussion.
But if you're suggesting I look at the document versions to see if my changes have been done, did that before posting. In too many
instances, the paralegal or secretary made further mistakes in making
the corrections I pointed out, for instance misspelling a legatee's
name in a new way. I can point those out, and I have. But my concern
is undiscussed changes she may have made, perhaps through
carelessness. Some sort of diff seems the only reliable way to find
out if she did that.
winget search diffutilsName Id Version Source ------------------------------------------------------
winget install GnuWin32.DiffUtilsFound GnuWin32: DiffUtils [GnuWin32.DiffUtils] Version 2.8.7-1
winget install uutils.diffutilsFound diffutils [uutils.diffutils] Version 0.5.0
where diffutils C:\Users\paul\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WinGet\Packages\uutils.diffutils_Microsoft.Winget.Source_8wekyb3d8bbwe\diffutils.exe
diffutils diff -u fruits_old.txt fruits_new.txt <=== what actually worked ["tested"]--- fruits_old.txt 2026-07-10 22:10:45.958970100 -0400
diffutils diff /?Usage: diff <from> <to>
diffutils diff -u fruits_old.txt fruits_new.txt--- fruits_old.txt 2026-07-10 22:24:05.665176500 -0400
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:09:23 -0500, sticks wrote:
Office 2024 for $55
<https://www.stacksocial.com/sales/microsoft-office-2024-professional-plus>
I've been aware of Stack Social's "fire sales", but have always been
nervous because it seemed like a substantial minority of purchasers
get non-working licenses.
But I'm torn. There are a few features of newer Excel that I'd like
to try, though they're not must-haves. $54.99 is just the cost of a
meal at a restaurant these days, so that doesn't seem like a big
obstacle.
One thing does worry me, though. I don't have a Microsoft account.
The page says "This licensing type will be connected with your actual device, NOT your Microsoft account." I guess that means I don't need
a Microsoft account to activate it. But what about downloading the installer?
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 19:05:34 +0200, Michael Logies wrote:
I would upload to Google NotebookLM and let the AI do the comparison:
https://notebooklm.google/
But with AI, can we be sure the document is not sent to Microsoft or
Google?
Le 09/07/2026 … 17:59, ....winston a ‚critÿ:
On 07/09/2026 10:03 AM, Stan Brown wrote:i suggest this solution (sorry but i don't speak english well) :
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
1
-download "Format Factory" Free software here : https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/format_factory.html
or here :
http://www.pcfreetime.com/formatfactory/index.php?language=en (editor website)
or here :
https://www.clubic.com/telecharger-fiche223920-formatfactory.html
2
-Install it (without the "ads" selected cases) and open it
-choose menu "Document" (perhaps it is "Files" in the english version ?) -Choose menu PDF-> Text
-Select and ad one of your .pdf file
-clic at "Run" (...to conversion)
repeat the operation for your second .pdf file. ; and after you obtain 2 text files very easy to compare :
3-
-download the opensource soft "WinMerge" here :
https://winmerge.org/?lang=en
-install it
-compare your 2 files text
That's all.
N.B. :
If you want to be absolutely sure of the confidentiality of your
documents, first download the 2 softwares *and then cut off your
Internet connection while you perform the necessary operations*. After which, uninstall and remove the 2 softwares from your computer before reconnecting to the Internet
;-)
On 7/10/2026 1:32 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:09:23 -0500, sticks wrote:
Office 2024 for $55
<https://www.stacksocial.com/sales/microsoft-office-2024-professional-plus>
I've been aware of Stack Social's "fire sales", but have always been nervous because it seemed like a substantial minority of purchasers
get non-working licenses.
I would guess people who mostly are not very capable, but I know if the
code won't work they'll just send one that does. I've never had any problems with them.
But I'm torn. There are a few features of newer Excel that I'd like
to try, though they're not must-haves. $54.99 is just the cost of a
meal at a restaurant these days, so that doesn't seem like a big
obstacle.
I had 2003 for years, and did have 2010 on one machine. As my documents
and spreadsheets got more complicated it became an issue. There were difficult script workarounds that I didn't want to do. Searching for
ways to do things or having functions or formatting that could do what I wanted, I decided to go ahead and upgrade on one machine to version
2019. Much more function and capability and I was duly impressed. I am
not really an MS fanboi and even used open office for some things (I
install that for friends that need to open things), but I will admit I
use the hell out of it and it is great software.
One thing does worry me, though. I don't have a Microsoft account.
The page says "This licensing type will be connected with your actual device, NOT your Microsoft account." I guess that means I don't need
a Microsoft account to activate it. But what about downloading the installer?
I've bought this from them 4 times now. 1-2019 and 3-2021. They send
you an email with the necessary licensing numbers and a link to download
the software, which I believe is <https://setup.office.com/>. It is
super easy and you would have no problems getting it done and using it immediately. You can only install it on one machine at a time, but if
you decide to put it on another computer, you can delete it from being
used there and install it on the other. I think this is done on a
microsoft account and have done it one time, but I can't remember for sure.
I would upload to Google NotebookLM and let the AI do the comparison: https://notebooklm.google/
Thanks for the reassurance. I purchased and have just installed and activated it.
Office 2024 takes some getting used to. Just navigating to an
existing file that I want to open seems much more difficult than in
2010.
If this utility seems out of reach (WSL2, some Linux installed, poppler-utilities package), that's
OK, you should look for a mutool, which can do conversions too.
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:51:15 -0500, sticks wrote:
On 7/10/2026 1:32 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:09:23 -0500, sticks wrote:
Office 2024 for $55
<https://www.stacksocial.com/sales/microsoft-office-2024-professional-plus>
I've been aware of Stack Social's "fire sales", but have always been
nervous because it seemed like a substantial minority of purchasers
get non-working licenses.
I would guess people who mostly are not very capable, but I know if the
code won't work they'll just send one that does. I've never had any
problems with them.
But I'm torn. There are a few features of newer Excel that I'd like
to try, though they're not must-haves. $54.99 is just the cost of a
meal at a restaurant these days, so that doesn't seem like a big
obstacle.
I had 2003 for years, and did have 2010 on one machine. As my documents
and spreadsheets got more complicated it became an issue. There were
difficult script workarounds that I didn't want to do. Searching for
ways to do things or having functions or formatting that could do what I
wanted, I decided to go ahead and upgrade on one machine to version
2019. Much more function and capability and I was duly impressed. I am
not really an MS fanboi and even used open office for some things (I
install that for friends that need to open things), but I will admit I
use the hell out of it and it is great software.
One thing does worry me, though. I don't have a Microsoft account.
The page says "This licensing type will be connected with your actual
device, NOT your Microsoft account." I guess that means I don't need
a Microsoft account to activate it. But what about downloading the
installer?
I've bought this from them 4 times now. 1-2019 and 3-2021. They send
you an email with the necessary licensing numbers and a link to download
the software, which I believe is <https://setup.office.com/>. It is
super easy and you would have no problems getting it done and using it
immediately. You can only install it on one machine at a time, but if
you decide to put it on another computer, you can delete it from being
used there and install it on the other. I think this is done on a
microsoft account and have done it one time, but I can't remember for sure.
Thanks for the reassurance. I purchased and have just installed and
activated it.
Office 2024 takes some getting used to. Just navigating to an
existing file that I want to open seems much more difficult than in
2010.
On 7/11/2026 5:35 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:51:15 -0500, sticks wrote:
On 7/10/2026 1:32 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:09:23 -0500, sticks wrote:
Office 2024 for $55
<https://www.stacksocial.com/sales/microsoft-office-2024-professional-plus>
I've been aware of Stack Social's "fire sales", but have always been
nervous because it seemed like a substantial minority of purchasers
get non-working licenses.
I would guess people who mostly are not very capable, but I know if the
code won't work they'll just send one that does.ÿ I've never had any
problems with them.
But I'm torn. There are a few features of newer Excel that I'd like
to try, though they're not must-haves. $54.99 is just the cost of a
meal at a restaurant these days, so that doesn't seem like a big
obstacle.
I had 2003 for years, and did have 2010 on one machine.ÿ As my documents >>> and spreadsheets got more complicated it became an issue.ÿ There were
difficult script workarounds that I didn't want to do.ÿ Searching for
ways to do things or having functions or formatting that could do what I >>> wanted, I decided to go ahead and upgrade on one machine to version
2019.ÿ Much more function and capability and I was duly impressed.ÿ I am >>> not really an MS fanboi and even used open office for some things (I
install that for friends that need to open things), but I will admit I
use the hell out of it and it is great software.
One thing does worry me, though. I don't have a Microsoft account.
The page says "This licensing type will be connected with your actual
device, NOT your Microsoft account." I guess that means I don't need
a Microsoft account to activate it. But what about downloading the
installer?
I've bought this from them 4 times now.ÿ 1-2019 and 3-2021.ÿ They send
you an email with the necessary licensing numbers and a link to download >>> the software, which I believe is <https://setup.office.com/>.ÿ It is
super easy and you would have no problems getting it done and using it
immediately.ÿ You can only install it on one machine at a time, but if
you decide to put it on another computer, you can delete it from being
used there and install it on the other.ÿ I think this is done on a
microsoft account and have done it one time, but I can't remember for
sure.
Thanks for the reassurance. I purchased and have just installed and
activated it.
Ah, good for you.ÿ They make the process pretty straight forward and
simple.
Office 2024 takes some getting used to. Just navigating to an
existing file that I want to open seems much more difficult than in
2010.
I'm sure you'll get used to it fairly quickly.ÿ They new capabilities
you have will be something you'll like.ÿ Glad it worked out for you.
On Sat, 11 Jul 2026 15:35:22 -0700, Stan Brown wrote:
Thanks for the reassurance. I purchased and have just installed and
activated it.
Office 2024 takes some getting used to. Just navigating to an
existing file that I want to open seems much more difficult than in
2010.
Fileÿ¯ Optionsÿ¯ Generalÿ¯ Start up options and un-checking "Show the
start screen when this application starts" fixed that.
Word 2024 did concert the three PDFs to .docx. But Word 2024 crashed
when I tried to use Reviewÿ¯ Compare on two of them. (Word 2010
didn't crash, but it hung with "Not responding" till I used Task
Manager to put it out of its misery. Possibly there was something in
the .docx files created by Word 2024 that confused Word 2010.)
On 2026/7/10 18:5:34, Michael Logies wrote:
I would upload to Google NotebookLM and let the AI do the comparison:
https://notebooklm.google/
From the original post: "Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website."
On Sat, 7/11/2026 6:49 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
On 2026/7/10 18:5:34, Michael Logies wrote:
I would upload to Google NotebookLM and let the AI do the comparison:
https://notebooklm.google/
From the original post: "Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website."
There is something called OpenNotebook, but the demo someone
was doing, it can "learn" from your source document, and do
semantic (meaning) comparisons rather than literal comparisons.
OpenNotebook uses a docker container, API keys, and is the
bailing wire/binder twine version of Google NotebookLM. While the
name is suggestive of competition, it isn't really ready
for ordinary users.
I have a suspicion they can all do literal comparisons.
That's based on my test run on CoPilot. I noticed right away,
that CoPilot could not count (apply line numbering while it
worked), but since I know of its math illiteracy, that doesn't
immediately rate it as "useless". It's more of a "crippled"
aspect to the output. But it still managed to do the job of
identifying lines that were different. I wanted to see it doing
that, without "interpreting" the text and working in a non-literal
fashion, as that would have rated the test as a failure.
Paul
Word 2024 did concert the three PDFs to .docx. But Word 2024 crashed
when I tried to use Reviewÿ¯ Compare on two of them. (Word 2010
didn't crash, but it hung with "Not responding" till I used Task
Manager to put it out of its misery. Possibly there was something in
the .docx files created by Word 2024 that confused Word 2010.)
Stack social is probably much more honest than microsoft..
Still, you should do as your mother taught you ... don't play with shit because you could get it on you.
On Thu, 9 Jul 2026 07:03:31 -0700, Stan Brown wrote:
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
[And no uploading to websites.]
Suggestions to convert to Word and then use Word's compare tool
didn't work for my Word 2010. I can't see buying a later version of
Office for a one-time need. But the suggestions did cause me to think
about converting to plain text. Mutool, which is part of the mupdf
FOSS program, can convert PDFs to plain text.
1. mutool draw -F txt version1.pdf >version1.txt
2. csdiff version1.txt version2.txt
mupdf main site: https://mupdf.com/
mupdf downloads: https://mupdf.com/releases?product=MuPDF
mutool manpage: https://www.mankier.com/1/mutool (third party)
csdiff free program (via Internet Wayback Machine):
https://web.archive.org/web/20141018214421/http://www.componentsoftware.com/Products/CSDiff
csdiff is not open source but was a free program by Component
Solutions, but disappeared from their website some years ago when the business changed direction. I've been using it since 2005, in Windows
XP, 7, 8.1, 10, and 11, and have had no problems.
On Sat, 7/11/2026 6:56 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
On Sat, 11 Jul 2026 15:35:22 -0700, Stan Brown wrote:
Thanks for the reassurance. I purchased and have just installed and
activated it.
Office 2024 takes some getting used to. Just navigating to an
existing file that I want to open seems much more difficult than in
2010.
Fileÿ¯ Optionsÿ¯ Generalÿ¯ Start up options and un-checking "Show the
start screen when this application starts" fixed that.
Word 2024 did concert the three PDFs to .docx. But Word 2024 crashed
when I tried to use Reviewÿ¯ Compare on two of them. (Word 2010
didn't crash, but it hung with "Not responding" till I used Task
Manager to put it out of its misery. Possibly there was something in
the .docx files created by Word 2024 that confused Word 2010.)
Is there any way to save the text in the .docx for further usage ?
Just in case you have to do the comparison, outside of Office.
There is a claim that Notepad++ has a compare function. I don't
have that set up here.
On Fri, 7/10/2026 1:28 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
On Thu, 9 Jul 2026 07:03:31 -0700, Stan Brown wrote:
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
[And no uploading to websites.]
Suggestions to convert to Word and then use Word's compare tool
didn't work for my Word 2010. I can't see buying a later version of
Office for a one-time need. But the suggestions did cause me to think about converting to plain text. Mutool, which is part of the mupdf
FOSS program, can convert PDFs to plain text.
1. mutool draw -F txt version1.pdf >version1.txt
2. csdiff version1.txt version2.txt
mupdf main site: https://mupdf.com/
mupdf downloads: https://mupdf.com/releases?product=MuPDF
mutool manpage: https://www.mankier.com/1/mutool (third party)
csdiff free program (via Internet Wayback Machine):
https://web.archive.org/web/20141018214421/http://www.componentsoftware.com/Products/CSDiff
csdiff is not open source but was a free program by Component
Solutions, but disappeared from their website some years ago when the business changed direction. I've been using it since 2005, in Windows
XP, 7, 8.1, 10, and 11, and have had no problems.
Since you also report a failure in your Office 2024 attempt to
do a comparison, did the output of your CSDIFF run show anything
weird in character sets and the like ?
Were there actually a lot of changes, or changes detected you
did not suspect ?
I just tested the compare option of office word 2021 with two versions
of a 45 page pdf I wrote as a word file and converted so others could
read that didn't have office. Since Stan gets pdf's from the attorney,
I wanted to make sure it could do that. So I opened the first and
selected to Review/compare it. It said it would convert it to a docx
file. OK. Then I directed it to the second version pdf and it
converted it also and did the comparison. It ended up with a three
column sheet with my 535 Revisions in the first column with the compared document in the middle with the changes marked, and the original in the third column to compare.
It appears then that if Stan has a copy of the pdf original and the one
he gets sent back, he can easily do what he wants all in word 2024 in a matter of a minute or two.
On Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:06:00 -0500, sticks wrote:
I just tested the compare option of office word 2021 with two versions
of a 45 page pdf I wrote as a word file and converted so others could
read that didn't have office. Since Stan gets pdf's from the attorney,
I wanted to make sure it could do that. So I opened the first and
selected to Review/compare it. It said it would convert it to a docx
file. OK. Then I directed it to the second version pdf and it
converted it also and did the comparison. It ended up with a three
column sheet with my 535 Revisions in the first column with the compared
document in the middle with the changes marked, and the original in the
third column to compare.
I suspect my 83-page PDF was just too big for Word.
It appears then that if Stan has a copy of the pdf original and the one
he gets sent back, he can easily do what he wants all in word 2024 in a
matter of a minute or two.
Unfortunately Word crashed when I tried to compare the ,docx files
converted from two of the PDF versions.
On Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:06:00 -0500, sticks wrote:
I just tested the compare option of office word 2021 with two versions
of a 45 page pdf I wrote as a word file and converted so others could
read that didn't have office. Since Stan gets pdf's from the attorney,
I wanted to make sure it could do that. So I opened the first and
selected to Review/compare it. It said it would convert it to a docx
file. OK. Then I directed it to the second version pdf and it
converted it also and did the comparison. It ended up with a three
column sheet with my 535 Revisions in the first column with the compared
document in the middle with the changes marked, and the original in the
third column to compare.
I suspect my 83-page PDF was just too big for Word.
It appears then that if Stan has a copy of the pdf original and the one
he gets sent back, he can easily do what he wants all in word 2024 in a
matter of a minute or two.
Unfortunately Word crashed when I tried to compare the ,docx files
converted from two of the PDF versions.
I've bought this from them 4 times now.ÿ 1-2019 and 3-2021.ÿ They send
you an email with the necessary licensing numbers and a link to download
the software, which I believe is <https://setup.office.com/>.ÿ It is
super easy and you would have no problems getting it done and using it immediately.ÿ You can only install it on one machine at a time, but if
you decide to put it on another computer, you can delete it from being
used there and install it on the other.ÿ I think this is done on a
microsoft account and have done it one time, but I can't remember for sure.
On Thu, 9 Jul 2026 11:59:26 -0400, ....winston wrote:
On 07/09/2026 10:03 AM, Stan Brown wrote:
I'm currently going through estate planning, and my attorney's office
gives me a new 80+ page document after each round of updates. You'd
think they'd give me a redline version, but no. I don't trust myself
to compare the versions on screen, and reading each draft of the
whole document is really time consuming, plus there's still the
possibility of missing something.
Is there any free software that runs in Windows and will show
differences between two PDFs? Because these are sensitive documents,
I don't want to upload them to a website. I tried googling, but
couldn't find anything that would do the job without costing an arm
and a leg.
Thanks in advance!
Prior to changing or during the 'change' process was there discussion of
what needed to be changed(their recommendation or yours).
Not sure where you're going with this. There was indeed discussion.
But if you're suggesting I look at the document versions to see if my
changes have been done, did that before posting. In too many
instances, the paralegal or secretary made further mistakes in making
the corrections I pointed out, for instance misspelling a legatee's
name in a new way. I can point those out, and I have. But my concern
is undiscussed changes she may have made, perhaps through
carelessness. Some sort of diff seems the only reliable way to find
out if she did that.
Stan Brown wrote:
But if you're suggesting I look at the document versions to see if my changes have been done, did that before posting. In too many
instances, the paralegal or secretary made further mistakes in making
the corrections I pointed out, for instance misspelling a legatee's
name in a new way. I can point those out, and I have. But my concern
is undiscussed changes she may have made, perhaps through
carelessness. Some sort of diff seems the only reliable way to find
out if she did that.
Ah...unsolicited, undiscussed/undisclosed changes. Thanks for the clarification.
For the most part, your response is reasonably bizarre and
unconventional direction, possibly ignorant of the estate planning
process thus the reason for an off-the-wall response.
On 7/10/2026 10:39 AM, ....winston wrote:
For the most part, your response is reasonably bizarre and
unconventional direction, possibly ignorant of the estate planning
process thus the reason for an off-the-wall response.
Fine.
Then tell them to give you plain-text
documents in the form of simple text
files. Then you can use simple, free
software to compare them, as for
example, windiff. :)
No formatting, no HTML, no stylesheet,
no fonts, no tricks, no magic, no curse,
no illusion. Meow....
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