My users have encountered problems comparing .PDF documents using Beyond Compare 2 (BC2).
Some .PDF documents will compare correctly while others will fail to display text in the viewing pane.
I looked into it and found that in our environment, there are several different ways Word documents get transcribed into .PDF files:
- Case 1: Utility known as CutePDF Writer which can be chosen as a printer when installed.
- Case 2: When Microsoft Office 2007 plugin "SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe" is installed, mousing over Save As... in Word allows you to save a document as .PDF.
- Case 3: When Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional is installed, Word will have an "Acrobat" tab with a button: "Create PDF".
(- Case 4: Behaves identical to Case 3 - When Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional is installed, mousing over Save As... in Word allows you to save a document as Adobe PDF)
In BC2 cases 1 and 2 appear normally enough, only displaying certain editing items differently. Case 3 (and 4) fails to display in the BC2 view window.
Using PDFtoText.exe from command prompt to pull text from .PDF files of each of the above cases, I was able to find that Cases 1 and 2 work as expected, creating a .txt file with text from the source .PDF file. Case 3 (and 4) however fails, encountering the following errors (identical errors for both cases):
Error (0): PDF file is damaged - attempting to reconstruct xref table...
Error: Couldn't find trailer dictionary
Error: Couldn't read xref table
Unfortunately the .PDFs my users work with are not all created in house so I cannot simply eliminate Case 3 from my environment. Is there anything else I can try to get this working?
Some .PDF documents will compare correctly while others will fail to display text in the viewing pane.
I looked into it and found that in our environment, there are several different ways Word documents get transcribed into .PDF files:
- Case 1: Utility known as CutePDF Writer which can be chosen as a printer when installed.
- Case 2: When Microsoft Office 2007 plugin "SaveAsPDFandXPS.exe" is installed, mousing over Save As... in Word allows you to save a document as .PDF.
- Case 3: When Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional is installed, Word will have an "Acrobat" tab with a button: "Create PDF".
(- Case 4: Behaves identical to Case 3 - When Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional is installed, mousing over Save As... in Word allows you to save a document as Adobe PDF)
In BC2 cases 1 and 2 appear normally enough, only displaying certain editing items differently. Case 3 (and 4) fails to display in the BC2 view window.
Using PDFtoText.exe from command prompt to pull text from .PDF files of each of the above cases, I was able to find that Cases 1 and 2 work as expected, creating a .txt file with text from the source .PDF file. Case 3 (and 4) however fails, encountering the following errors (identical errors for both cases):
Error (0): PDF file is damaged - attempting to reconstruct xref table...
Error: Couldn't find trailer dictionary
Error: Couldn't read xref table
Unfortunately the .PDFs my users work with are not all created in house so I cannot simply eliminate Case 3 from my environment. Is there anything else I can try to get this working?
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