Build a Python script to compare PDFs

Here’s a Python script that compares two PDFs by extracting their text and showing differences. It uses PyMuPDF (fitz) for PDF text extraction and Python’s built-in difflib for comparison.

python
CopyEdit
import fitz  # PyMuPDF
import difflib

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

def compare_pdfs(pdf1_path, pdf2_path):
    text1 = extract_text_from_pdf(pdf1_path).splitlines()
    text2 = extract_text_from_pdf(pdf2_path).splitlines()
    
    diff = difflib.unified_diff(text1, text2, fromfile=pdf1_path, tofile=pdf2_path, lineterm='')
    for line in diff:
        print(line)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import sys
    if len(sys.argv) != 3:
        print("Usage: python compare_pdfs.py file1.pdf file2.pdf")
        sys.exit(1)
    
    compare_pdfs(sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2])

How to use:

1. Install PyMuPDF:

   nginx
   CopyEdit
   pip install pymupdf
   

2. Save this script as compare_pdfs.py.

3. Run from the command line:

   nginx
   CopyEdit
   python compare_pdfs.py first.pdf second.pdf
   

The script outputs the line-by-line differences between the text extracted from both PDFs in a unified diff format.

If you want me to help you make it more advanced (like comparing layout or images), just ask!