DiffPDF Changes

DiffPDF is used to compare two PDF files—textually or visually.

4.1.1

Bug fix. In rare cases PDF reports could be missing a page; this has been fixed.
Now gives a percentage indication of approximately how different the PDFs are overall.
Tiny cosmetic change to the button layout.

4.1.0

Improved speed—up to 10% faster for book-length documents.
Added a “Swap” button to make it easy to swap the left and right PDFs.
The page list view now gives a visual and percentage indication of approximately how different pages are.
Added indicators to the toolbox tabs to make it more obvious that they are clickable and whether they are “open”.
Improved the button arrangement.
Bug fixes. PDF filenames and page ranges can no longer be changed during a comparison.

4.0.5

Subtle algorithm improvement which eliminates some rare false positives.
PDF report headers now end with the program name and version rather than just the program name.

4.0.4

Bug fix. In rare cases margin exclusion didn't always work correctly in text modes—this has now been fixed.

4.0.3

Bug fix. Whitespace is now fully normalized. This means that all whitespace characters (space, non-breaking space, etc.), are treated as a space (i.e., as a word separator)—this reduces false positives in some cases.

4.0.2

Improved PDF library: this produces more accurate results, but can be slightly slower for book-length documents.
More attractive splitters.

4.0.1

Startup is now much faster.
The line tolerance algorithm is now specified by name (Standard or Special) rather than by number.
Tiered price discounts are available when buying at least 10 licenses.
The About window now shows the computer ID. This is useful for identifying the computer for those who have bought multiple license keys.

4.0.0

Added a Show Inserted/Deleted Pages text mode option. This can result in more understandable results in some cases when using a Pairs setting greater than one.
Changed how license keys work so that they are now tied to the computer DiffPDF runs on rather than to the licensee's name. The Register window has been updated to reflect this change.
Changed the license terms to match how the new license keys work.

3.5.1

The automatic setting of Pairs to the page count of the longest PDF now works correctly. (Previously it only worked the second time Compare was clicked.)

3.5.0

It is now possible to compare password-protected PDFs—providing you enter the correct password when prompted.
Completely rewritten the code for handling page ranges. This fixes a bug. It has also resulted in comparisons between page ranges being faster—much faster in the case of comparing relatively few pages out of PDFs that have many pages.
By default the Pairs is set to 1 at startup. It is now possible exercise more control over this setting's behavior.
Applied various small bug fixes including using the correct (logical) page number in the title of PDF reports.

3.4.4

Added an additional command line option to make it more convenient to run DiffPDF from within another program.
Added a tiny Visual Basic example function to show how one might call DiffPDF from a Visual Basic program.
Some internal changes so that DiffPDF and DiffPDFc might be able to coexist in the same directory—although this is not recommended or supported.

3.4.3

Updated one of the libraries that DiffPDF depends on.
Finally found and fixed the problem where in rare cases the Register window would say that a valid license key is invalid.

3.4.2

Applied another fix to stop the Register window saying that a valid license key is invalid.

3.4.1

Changed the default insertion highlighting color to cyan (from blue); and changed the default highlighting x extend to 4.0 points (from 2.5). Since the highlighting settings are remembered between sessions, we recommend upgraders manually set the new defaults to try them out.
Changed the selection rectangle's color from cyan to green.
Applied another fix to stop the Register window saying that a valid license key is invalid.

3.4.0

It is now possible to copy selected text to the clipboard.
Some tiny efficiency improvements.

3.3.3

Tweaked the main window so that the splitters take up less horizontal space and slightly reduced the space within the window's borders—all to make more room for showing the PDFs.
Introduced a new (and hopefully final) fix to stop the Register window saying that a valid license key is invalid.

3.3.2

Implemented a new more robust and general fix for landscape-oriented and other rotated pages. Now the page views and all reports work correctly for rotated pages in all modes (Appearance, Characters, and Words).

3.3.1

Fixed the handling of landscape-oriented pages, that is, pages rotated by 90°. The page views and visual reports now correctly show the whole page with differences correctly shown. Text reports' differences now have the correct coordinates. Note that while the Appearance and Words comparison modes work correctly for landscape pages, currently, Characters mode does not. (Fixed in 3.3.2.)
Fixed the change bar that is shown in the page views and visual text mode reports when the Preview First Page checkbox is checked so that it is always visible even when the page views and reports are zoomed to less than 100%.

3.3.0

Added support for passing PDF filenames on the command line to help those who want to automatically invoke DiffPDF as part of a larger process.
Various minor code cleanups and some tiny efficiency improvements.

3.2.0

Implemented line tolerance algorithm 6 which can produce better results in certain rare cases. The default is algorithm 5.
Fixed a bug that meant that navigating to the very first page using the global keyboard shortcut (F5) didn't work.
Slightly improved the 3.1.3 bug fix by making it more general.

3.1.3

Fixed a subtle bug that resulted in highlighting being painted in the wrong places in very rare cases.

3.1.2

Added global keyboard shortcuts for navigating to the previous (F5) or next (F6) different pair of pages.
Fixed a minor bug in the Register window.

3.1.1

Added support for using the old or new renderer for viewing pages and for visual (i.e., PDF) reports, since in some rare cases the old renderer is better than the new one.

3.1.0

DiffPDF now uses a much better PDF rendering library that produces clearer and sharper PNG and PDF reports. This also fixes a rare bug where some images were rendered as black rectangles.
Added support for highlighting modes when doing Appearance comparisons.
Added report options to allow PDF reports to output both pairs of pages (the default, and what all previous versions do), or to output only the first or second PDF's pages.
Removed the Advanced tab and replaced it with an Appearance Mode tab and a Text Modes tab which between them have all the advanced options.

3.0.2

Increased the experimental Pairs limit to 1000 for those with extremely powerful computers.
Cosmetic improvement to the appearance of the splitter controls.
Minor cosmetic improvement to how processing time is displayed.

3.0.1

Fixed a bug that meant in rare cases a valid registration key was treated as invalid in the Register window. (A workaround for older versions is to delete the last character of the name and then retype it.)

3.0.0

First public release of this DiffPDF 2 successor. DiffPDF 2 uses a single core no matter how many the computer has, whereas DiffPDF 3 uses all available cores. This means that DiffPDF 3 is as fast on dual core computers and faster on quad core or better computers. Furthermore DiffPDF 3 can highlight insertions, deletions, and replacements (as well as do the plain difference highlighting that DiffPDF 2 does), and DiffPDF 3 uses a more sophisticated text comparison algorithm that produces fewer false positives. DiffPDF 3 also offers more reporting options and uses the same PDF comparison engine as the command line DiffPDFc tool.

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