When you need this

The most common case: you agreed a draft in Word, and the other side sends “the execution version” as a PDF to sign. Before signing, you want to be sure the PDF says what the agreed Word file says, and nothing else. Other cases: checking a published policy against the internal draft, or a printed-and-scanned-then-OCR’d copy against the original.

Most comparison tools want two files of the same kind. RedlineKit reads both into plain text first, so a Word file can be compared with a PDF directly.

How to compare Word with PDF

Drop the agreed Word file (.docx) on Original.
Drop the PDF on Revised.
Press Compare. If the PDF was made from the same text, the result should say “No differences in the text”. If not, every difference is listed and numbered.

Compare two files now Free on screen. Files stay on your device.

How list numbers are handled

In Word, clause numbers like “4.2” or “(b)” are usually generated automatically and aren’t part of the text. In a PDF they are just characters on the page. When one side is a PDF, RedlineKit works out the Word file’s list numbers and includes them in the comparison, so “4.2 Payment” in the PDF matches clause 4.2 in Word, and a clause that was renumbered in the PDF shows up as a change.

Differences that aren’t real changes

A PDF is a drawing of the text, so a few things are normalised so they don’t count:

Quote styles and spacing. Curly and straight quotes count as the same; extra spaces and line breaks are ignored.
Ligatures. Some PDFs store “fi” or “fl” as a single symbol; these are read as the plain letters.
Repeated headers, footers and page numbers in the PDF are skipped (you can switch this off).

What can still show up: footnotes, and headers or footers that aren’t repeated on most pages, are part of the PDF’s text but aren’t read from the Word file, so they appear as insertions; a word hyphenated across a line break in the PDF may differ; and in a table whose columns are sized tightly to their text, the PDF can read a whole row as one line, so a cell may show as deleted in one place and inserted in another. All of these are easy to spot in the change list.

What to look for before signing

Zero changes is the goal. If the summary says there are no differences in the text, the words match.
Any change in numbers, dates, names or obligations needs an explanation before you sign.
Check what isn’t compared: signature blocks in text boxes, schedules attached as images, and anything in headers or footers.

Checking a long agreement quickly

For a 40-page agreement with only a handful of differences, tick Changes only: unchanged paragraphs fold away, leaving each change with one paragraph of context either side. Step through with J and K, and use the side-by-side view to read the Word wording on the left against the PDF wording on the right. If you expected no changes at all, the summary line answers the question in one glance.

Exports

Viewing is free. One credit exports the comparison as a PDF redline (to attach to an email asking about the differences) and as a Word file. Because the revised side here is a PDF, the Word file is a new, plain document built from the compared text with each difference tracked. Your documents never leave your browser either way.

Compare a Word document with a PDF