diffpdfc changes
diffpdfc is used to compare two PDF
files—textually or visually.
5.9.5
- Added support for doing appearance mode comparisons with the “new”
renderer. In some rare cases the “old” renderer doesn't detect some
texture or gradient fill differences—but the new renderer does.
5.9.4
- Updated libraries, including the PDF library.
5.9.3
5.9.2
- Updated libraries to make diffpdfc slightly faster and use less
memory.
- Log files (which were normally empty) are no longer created.
- Updated and clarified the license.
5.9.1
- Updated some libraries (bug fixes and a tiny speed improvement).
- Updated the license.
5.9.0
- Updated to use a new PDF library that supports the new PDF 2
standard, in addition to the existing PDF 1.x standards that
previous versions support. In many use cases the new library uses less
memory and is faster.
5.8.2
- A new
.csv
report format can be chosen using the
report_new_csv
option. This is more robust than the old format
and is compatible with new product developments.
- Acquiring a free trial key should be a tiny bit easier since
diffpdfc now attempts to pre-fill-in the Computer ID.
5.8.1
- Optimizations have been applied to the Standard text comparison
algorithm which produce noticable speedups in many cases. (The most
important optimizations are only available in 64-bit editions. These
editions can run more than 10% faster—depending on the PDFs being
compared—at the expense of using more memory.)
5.6.8
-
Added a new
--ignore-hyphens
command line option (and
ignore.hyphens
configuration file option). This defaults to
false. If you set it to true then hyphens will be ignored. This means
that, for example, one–two is treated as onetwo.
This works even if two is on the next line.
- Reports can now be scaled up to 800%. (The previous limit was 400%.)
Scaling takes more memory and CPU time, e.g., 200% takes 4x the memory
and CPU, and 400% takes 16x the memory and CPU, so scaling beyond 400%
is best used only on a high performance computer with plenty of RAM and
using a 64-bit version of diffpdfc.
5.6.7
- Updated—and slightly faster—PDF library.
5.6.6
- Improved PDF report output to use Portrait/Landscape more
appropriately when outputting the changes for only one of the two
PDFs.
- Tiny minor internal improvements.
5.6.5
- For report types that have titles, the title now shows each PDF's
filename with its full absolute path (previously the absolute or
relative path was shown).
- Added a new
.dpc
configuration file option
report.path_in_title
which defaults to true
(same
behavior as previous versions), but which if set to false
will
mean that report titles contain filenames without paths.
- Improved error logging.
- Various internal improvements.
- Updated some of the libraries that diffpdfc uses.
5.6.4
- Fixed a bug which caused missing pages to always be the size of the
first page rather than of the corresponding page. This only affects
PDFs which have different numbers of different-sized pages.
- Updated the PDF library. This improves rendering and accuracy in
some quite rare cases.
5.6.3
- Updated the PDF library. This improves rendering and accuracy in
some very rare corner cases. Also, the library is slightly faster.
5.6.2
- The
save_memory
option's default has been changed to
false
. Add save_memory: true
to your .dpc
file(s) if you are comparing large (1,000+ page) PDFs and need to save
memory.
- Updated the
--help
text and the license to ensure LGPL
compliance.
5.6.1
- Added support for a new
.dpc
file option,
save_memory
. The default is true
, but if set to
false
, diffpdfc will be able to compare some rare PDFs that
cannot normally be compared—at the cost of using a lot more
memory.
5.6.0
- Password-protected PDFs should now be comparable—providing
that you supply the correct password using the new
--password1
command line option if the first PDF is password protected
and --password2
if the second PDF is password protected.
5.5.1
- Fixed a bug that could prevent some
.dpc
files being read
correctly.
5.5.0
- Added a new “Multi-Column” comparison algorithm that can produce
much better results for multi-column PDFs than the Standard algorithm.
The new algorithm must be set in a
.dpc
file using the
comparison.algorithm
option.
- A new
column.tolerance
option is available in .dpc
files to allow additional tweaking of the Multi-Column comparison
algorithm's behavior.
- The
line.tolerance.algorithm
option has been replaced by
the new comparison.algorithm
option.
- Added a new
--normalize-ligatures
command line option and
corresponding normalize.ligatures
.dpc
file option.
The default is off (the current behavior). If switched on, ligatures are
treated as if spelled out, e.g., fi
= fi
, fl
=
fl
, etc.
- diffpdfc is now available as a 32-bit or a 64-bit application. The
32-bit version will work on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, whereas
the 64-bit version will work only on 64-bit Windows. The advantage of
the 64-bit version is that it does not have the 2GB memory limit that
32-bit applications have. This makes it possible to compare huge PDFs
using Appearance mode—providing the machine has enough free
memory.
- Comparisons now use less memory—considerably less when using
Appearance mode.
- Numerous minor improvements.
5.3.1
- The license has changed to allow for a license key to be reissued at
most once, within one year of purchase. In effect this allows a key to
be transferred if a computer breaks or is replaced. For the precise
terms, see the diffpdfc-license.pdf
(31 KB).
5.3.0
- The Computer ID used for license keys is now based on the CPU and
Motherboard only, and is no longer dependent on the BIOS. This means
that license keys issued on and from 2015-06-26 for version 5.3.0 and
later will not be affected by BIOS changes. Old license keys will
continue to work (providing the BIOS, CPU, and Motherboard are
unchanged).
5.2.1
- Comparisons are now faster in many cases.
- Updated some of the libraries used by diffpdfc. This should ensure
that some very rare PDFs that couldn't previously be rendered are now
rendered correctly.
5.2.0
- Eliminated some rare false positives.
- Fixed a bug in page range handling that caused problems in some rare
cases.
- Increased the pairs limit (how many pairs of pages can be compared
as if one very long page) from 1,000 to 5,000. Setting pairs to 1 (the
default) and using page ranges is still to be preferred.
- Updated some of the libraries used by diffpdfc.
5.1.2
- Fixed a rare bug. Now, if diffpdfc cannot work out the number of cores
on a Windows server operating system it will use the user-specified
number instead.
- Updated some of the libraries used by diffpdfc.
5.1.1
- Bug fix: eliminated a subtle bug that could cause diffpdfc to crash
when comparing entire folders of PDFs.
5.1.0
- Added support for arbitrary rectangle exclusion (in addition
to the existing support for margin and corner exclusion). This means
that any arbitrary rectangles anywhere on the page can be excluded from
comparisons. See the
rectangle
configuration file option.
- It is now possible to set the “Missing Page” text to any text you
like using the
text.missing_page
configuration option.
5.0.0
- Added the
-f
(--format
) and -R
(--reportdir
) command-line options, and the format
,
reportdir
, and report.pdfprefix
configuration file
options. These make it possible to compare two directories of PDFs and
have the reports written to a third directory (“reportdir”) with each
report having the same name as the compared PDFs (but with the given
report format suffix—and for PDF reports with the
report.pdfprefix
prefix if specified).
- Added the
-A
(--accuracy
) option. By default
appearance mode comparisons compare every corresponding square exactly,
pixel for pixel, i.e., comparison accuracy is 100%. In some situations
it is useful to consider pages that are almost identical to be
the same—this can now be done by setting the accuracy to less than
100% (e.g., to 99% or less).
- The
-V
(--verbose
) command line option can now be
repeated (-V
-V
) to produce extra detail (i.e., a list
of each differing pair of pages and their approximate percentage
differences) at the end.
- Removed the old deprecated line tolerance algorithms 1-4; algorithm
5 is better in all cases.
- Added support for remote deployment (i.e., bypassing the Register
window and avoiding the need to use the
.msi
installer on
individual computers), for customers who buy at least ten licenses.
- Implemented a new license key scheme, and updated the license terms
to match.
- It should now be possible to compare huge PDFs (those with thousands
or even tens of thousands of pages).
- Improved the comparison speed. For PDFs in the tens of pages the
improvement could be 5% or more; for PDFs in the hundreds of pages the
improvement could be 30% or more, and for thousand page plus PDFs the
improvement could be 40% or more.
- Reduced memory consumption by up to 50% for large PDFs.
4.2.3
- In some rare cases a valid license key could wrongly be identified
as invalid: this has now been fixed.
4.2.2
- Bug fixes: when comparing all the PDFs in two parallel directories
in some cases missing PDFs were reported twice and in some of these
cases, diffpdfc crashed. These have all been fixed.
4.2.1
- When comparing all the PDFs in two parallel directories,
if a summary is requested it now shows the reports produced for each
pair of PDFs that are compared (if any), and any PDFs that could not be
compared because there was no corresponding PDF in the other directory.
4.2.0
- diffpdfc can now compare all the PDFs in two parallel directories,
with reports and a summary if required.
- Reintroduced the
.log
report type since some customers are
using it.
4.1.4
- Bug fix. If the number of cores cannot be detected the program
defaults to 1; previously it silently failed. This can be overridden using
the
--cores
option (which can also be set in a .dpc
configuration file as explained in the manual.).
- Dropped the
.log
report type.
4.1.3
- The maximum square size is now 144 pt to allow for coarser-grained
appearance comparisons.
- More fine-grained error codes.
- The license key is more robust in the face of changing network
configurations.
4.1.2
- Added an
.log
report type that produces basic
summary information.
- Fixed a bug where PDF report pages got smaller and smaller.
- Added a paragraph to the license clarifying use within virtual
machines.
- Changed all website and documentation links from
diffpdf.appspot.com to
www.qtrac.eu.
4.1.1
- Bug fix. In rare cases PDF and PNG reports could be missing a page;
this has been fixed.
- PNG report filenames now include both page numbers (even if they are
the same).
4.1.0
- Improved speed—up to 10% faster for book-length documents.
4.0.5
- Subtle algorithm improvement which eliminates some rare false
positives.
- Added support for specifying the number of cores on the command line
(using
--cores
) and in a .dpc
configuration file. This
should not normally be needed since diffpdfc auto-detects the number of
cores, but may be required if auto-detection fails (e.g., which may
occur when diffpdfc is executed within some other process).
- 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.
- Fixed a bug which prevented page ranges being specified in a
.dpc
configuration file.
4.0.1
- Startup is now much faster.
- Tiered price discounts are available when buying at least 10
licenses.
- The
--help
option 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.ins.del.pages
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 diffpdfc 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.
3.8.0
- 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.
- Applied various small bug fixes including correctly numbering PNG
reports and using the correct (logical) page number in the title of PDF
reports.
- There is now progress indication when generating PDF reports, since
this can take more than a few seconds for large reports.
- The
quiet
option now works correctly: when set, no
progress information is output.
3.7.7
- Added a tiny Visual Basic example function to show how one might
call diffpdfc from a Visual Basic program.
- Some internal changes so that diffpdfc and DiffPDF might be able
to coexist in the same directory—although this is not recommended or
supported.
3.7.6
- Updated one of the libraries that diffpdfc depends on.
- Finally found and fixed the problem where in rare cases the
Register window would say that a valid license key is invalid.
3.7.5
- Applied another fix to stop the Register window saying that a valid
license key is invalid.
3.7.4
- Changed the default insertion highlighting color to cyan (from blue).
- Changed the default highlighting x extend to 4.0 points (from 2.5).
- Applied another fix to stop the Register window saying that a valid
license key is invalid.
3.7.3
- Introduced a new (and hopefully final) fix to stop the Register
window saying that a valid license key is invalid.
3.7.2
- Implemented a new more robust and general fix for landscape-oriented
and other rotated pages. Now all reports work correctly for rotated
pages in all modes (
appearance
, chars
, and
words
).
3.7.1
- Fixed the handling of landscape-oriented pages, that is, pages
rotated by 90°. 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,
chars
mode does not. (Fixed in 3.7.2.)
- Fixed the change bar that is normally shown in visual text mode
reports so that it is always visible even when the report is scaled to
less than 100%.
3.7.0
- Added line tolerance algorithm 6 which can produce better results in
certain rare cases.
- Slightly improved the 3.6.3 bug fix by making it more general.
3.6.3
- Fixed a subtle bug that resulted in highlighting being painted in
the wrong places in visual reports in very rare cases.
3.6.2
- Fixed a minor bug in the Register window.
3.6.1
- Added the
report.new.renderer
option to control which
renderer to use, since in rare cases the old renderer is better than the
new one.
3.6.0
- diffpdfc 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.
- Increased the
pairs
maximum to 1000.
3.5.1
- Fixed a bug that led to top-left corners being rendered incorrectly
in PNG and PDF reports—this did not affect comparisons, which
correctly accounted for any corner exclusions.
- 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.)
3.5.0
- Introduced line tolerance algorithm 5 and made it the default. This
algorithm is superior to all the others.
- Introduced line tolerance algorithm 4 which like the earlier
algorithms is about 10% faster than algorithm 5. This is better than the
others, but not as good as algorithm 5. All previous algorithms have
been deprecated and will disappear in version 5.0.0.
- When hyphen normalization is in force, non-standard double quotes
are now also normalized.
- Implemented some small speed and memory usage optimizations for the
text comparison modes.
- Reduced the maximum digits after the decimal point in reports to a
more sensible (and reliable) 9.
3.4.0
- The default
line.tolerance.algorithm
and the default
line.tolerance
have both been changed to reduce false positives.
Either or both defaults can be overridden to get the same behavior as
older versions if required.
- Visual reports now match those produced by DiffPDF.
This affects the numbers used in PNG report filenames, and it also
affects the contents of PDF reports when page ranges are used.
- Updated the PDF library that diffpdfc uses.
3.3.0
- Changed the default line tolerance from
10
points to 12
points.
- Added support for the
line.tolerance
option. (In previous
versions it was fixed at 10
points; now it can be
changed.)
- Implemented some small optimizations.
3.2.1
- Fixed a subtle bug that could produce false positives in some rare
cases.
3.2.0
- Added support for the
verbose
option.
- Fixed a bug that produced incorrect reports when using page ranges.
- Tiny improvement to pages validation.
- Redesigned visual reports' titles.
Usually the (logical) page numbers are the same, but they may be
different if ranges of pages are compared rather than whole
documents.
- Efficiency improvements: PNG reports are now created without the need
for any temporary files (before they needed two per page), and PDF
reports are created using one temporary file per page (as opposed to
using three per page before).
3.1.2
- Fixed a bug that prevented the
square.size
being set in a
.dpc
file.
- Tried to eliminate the output of spurious warning messages that
could sometimes occur.
3.1.1
- The installer now tries to automatically add diffpdfc to the
PATH
.
3.1.0
- If a
report.path
is specified, then reports whose filenames
don't include an absolute path are written to the report path, rather
than to the current directory.
- When margin or corner exclusions are in effect, lines indicating the
excluded areas are now drawn on the pages shown in visual reports (i.e.,
PNG and PDF reports).
- The margin and corner line colors and line styles can be specified in
configuration files.
- Fixed a validation bug that prevented colors from being specified as
R,G,B triples in configuration files.
3.0.4
- Changed the manual's filename to include diffpdfc's major version
number.
- Some improved error messages
3.0.3
- Now correctly output an error message if a report cannot be written
(e.g., if the directory it is being written to is read-only like
C:\
usually is).
3.0.2
- Fixed a subtle bug that caused a crash when producing appearance
comparison reports when the number of pages in the two PDFs differ.
- Fixed a bug where two PDFs are reported as the same when their
initial pages really are the same but one has one or more extra
pages.
3.0.1
- Error messages are now printed to the console (
stderr
stream) as
expected, rather than written to the file
%TMP%\diffpdfc.log
.
- If a report cannot be output, an error message is correctly printed
instead. (This fix only worked for some cases; the complete fix is in
3.0.3.)
3.0.0
- First public release of this
comparepdf
successor.
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