PowerShell Script: Compare DOC and PDF Files

It is common to ask other departments for feedback on content to make sure you get mulitple perspectives on the topic. I cannot count the number of times I have sent a document to another department only to get it back with Tracking Changes disabled. 😡 When that happens, you can either manually check each and every word for a change like a caveman, or you can use a tool to show the differences. Fortunately, I have LEADTOOLS and PowerShell in my arsenal of tools.

With LEADTOOLS you can compare two DOCX files, two PDF files, or even a PDF to a DOCX. By adding OCR to the mix, you can even compare a photo of a document to a Word document. The following PowerShell cmdlet compares the contents of two files:

PowerShell 7 script to compare two documents, including PDF. It displays the change report in the default web browser.

function Compare-LtDocuments {
<#
.SYNOPSIS
    Compares two documents and displays differences in web browser

.DESCRIPTION
    Compares two documents, saves differences as markdown, and displays the Markdown in default web browser. A document can be Word, PDF, TXT, etc...

.PARAMETER DocumentPath1
    Document to compare

.PARAMETER DocumentPath2
    Document to compare

.EXAMPLE
    Compare-LtDocuments -DocumentPath1 "c:\temp\a.pdf" -DocumentPath2 "c:\temp\b.pdf"

.INPUTS
    String, String

.OUTPUTS
    Bool

.NOTES
    Author:  LEAD Technologies, Inc.
    Website: https://www.leadtools.com
    Twitter: @leadtools
#>
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory)]
        [string]$DocumentPath1,

        [Parameter(Mandatory)]
        [string]$DocumentPath2
    )

    if( -not(Test-Path -Path $DocumentPath1 -PathType Leaf) ) {
        Write-Error "File does not exist."
        return $false
    }

    if( -not(Test-Path -Path $DocumentPath2 -PathType Leaf) ) {
        Write-Error "File does not exist."
        return $false
    }

    $documentLoadOptions = New-Object -TypeName Leadtools.Document.LoadDocumentOptions
    $documentsList = New-Object -TypeName System.Collections.Generic.List[Leadtools.Document.LEADDocument]
    $documentsList.Add([Leadtools.Document.DocumentFactory]::LoadFromFile($DocumentPath1, $documentLoadOptions))
    $documentsList.Add([Leadtools.Document.DocumentFactory]::LoadFromFile($DocumentPath2, $documentLoadOptions))

    $mdReportOptions = New-Object -TypeName Leadtools.Document.Compare.MarkdownReportOptions
    $mdReportOptions.BaseColor = "#777"
    $mdReportOptions.ReportHeaders.Add("Example Report Header")
    $mdReportOptions.ReportFooters.Add("Example Report Footer")

    ForEach ($document in $documentsList){
        $mdReportOptions.DocumentNames.Add($document.Name)
    }

    $documentComparer = New-Object -TypeName Leadtools.Document.Compare.DocumentComparer
    $diffs = $documentComparer.CompareDocument($documentsList);

    $stream = New-Object -TypeName System.IO.MemoryStream
    $diffs.GenerateMarkdownReport($stream, $mdReportOptions)
    $stream.Position = 0
    $currentPath = Get-Location
    Do {
        $randomFileName =  [System.IO.Path]::GetRandomFileName() + ".md"
        $randomFilePath = Join-Path -Path $currentPath -ChildPath $randomFileName
    }
    Until(!(Test-Path $randomFilePath))

    [System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($randomFilePath, $stream.ToArray())

    $stream.Dispose()

    Show-Markdown -LiteralPath $randomFilePath -UseBrowser
}

See for yourself – Free evaluation

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Stay tuned for more PowerShell script samples

Did you see our previous post, “PowerShell Script: Merge PDF Files”? Stay tuned for more PDF examples to see how LEADTOOLS fits into any workflow.

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About Zac Ferraresi