Create a PDF comparison tool

To create a PDF comparison tool, you’ll need an application that can load two PDF files, compare their contents (textual and/or visual), and highlight the differences. Here’s a simple outline of how you can build one using Python with a GUI.

🛠 Tech Stack:

• Python

• tkinter for GUI

• PyMuPDF (fitz) or pdfminer.six for text extraction

• difflib for text comparison

• Optional: reportlab to generate a new PDF highlighting differences

✅ Features:

• Upload two PDF files

• Extract and compare text

• Highlight added, removed, and changed lines

• Display the differences in GUI

• Optionally export a diff report

🔧 Code: PDF Comparison Tool (Text-based)

python
CopyEdit
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import filedialog, messagebox, scrolledtext
import fitz  # PyMuPDF
import difflib

def extract_text_from_pdf(path):
    doc = fitz.open(path)
    text = ''
    for page in doc:
        text += page.get_text()
    return text

def compare_pdfs(path1, path2):
    text1 = extract_text_from_pdf(path1).splitlines()
    text2 = extract_text_from_pdf(path2).splitlines()
    diff = difflib.unified_diff(text1, text2, lineterm='', fromfile='PDF 1', tofile='PDF 2')
    return 'n'.join(diff)

class PDFComparerApp:
    def __init__(self, master):
        self.master = master
        master.title("PDF Comparison Tool")
        master.geometry("800x600")

        self.pdf1_path = None
        self.pdf2_path = None

        tk.Button(master, text="Upload PDF 1", command=self.load_pdf1).pack(pady=5)
        tk.Button(master, text="Upload PDF 2", command=self.load_pdf2).pack(pady=5)
        tk.Button(master, text="Compare PDFs", command=self.compare).pack(pady=10)

        self.result_area = scrolledtext.ScrolledText(master, wrap=tk.WORD, width=100, height=30)
        self.result_area.pack(padx=10, pady=10)

    def load_pdf1(self):
        self.pdf1_path = filedialog.askopenfilename(filetypes=[("PDF Files", "*.pdf")])
        if self.pdf1_path:
            messagebox.showinfo("File Loaded", f"PDF 1 Loaded:n{self.pdf1_path}")

    def load_pdf2(self):
        self.pdf2_path = filedialog.askopenfilename(filetypes=[("PDF Files", "*.pdf")])
        if self.pdf2_path:
            messagebox.showinfo("File Loaded", f"PDF 2 Loaded:n{self.pdf2_path}")

    def compare(self):
        if not self.pdf1_path or not self.pdf2_path:
            messagebox.showerror("Error", "Please load both PDF files.")
            return

        result = compare_pdfs(self.pdf1_path, self.pdf2_path)
        self.result_area.delete(1.0, tk.END)
        self.result_area.insert(tk.END, result)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    root = tk.Tk()
    app = PDFComparerApp(root)
    root.mainloop()

🔍 How It Works:

1. Load PDFs – User selects two PDF files.

2. Extract Text – Using PyMuPDF, the tool extracts raw text from each page.

3. Compare – difflib.unified_diff() highlights line-level changes.

4. Output – Changes are shown in a scrollable text box.

📦 Install Dependencies

bash
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pip install pymupdf

Would you like this version to compare visual differences (images, layout), or should I show how to export the highlighted differences as a new PDF?