Identifying corrupt and similar pdf files under Windows 98?

PROBLEM: With eMule one can often download several versions of a pdf file, with slight differences between them. How can one distinguish a good pdf file from a slightly corrupted pdf file? BeyondCompare, the best tool for comparing nearly-identical downloads (e.g.mp3s) is of no help since it has no plugin to compare the content of pdf files.

SOLUTION:

Adobe Acrobat (this is NOT the Acrobat Reader) can compare the content of 2 pdf files page-by-page:

Tools - Compare - Two Documents - Page by page visual differences - normal sensitivity (high sensitivity may not be necessary).

To check whether a .pdf file has slight corruptions, create a copy of it & then compare it in Acrobat against the original. If the pdf file contains corruptions, Acrobat will display an error msg during the file compare, like "Digital Signatures - Alert: Unrecognized object name", just click Ok to proceed.

If the page-compare with Acrobat does not show any differences, the Hex Viewer of BeyondCompare may still show corruptions/slight differences.

PROBLEM: new pdf formats

The last version for Win98 of Adobe Acrobat is v5.0.5, which can handle up to PDF v1.4 (Acrobat 5.x). Acrobat v5.0.5 is extremely unstable under Win98: when you compare a PDF v1.4 file, for example, against a similar file in v1.6 format (Acrobat v7.x), Adobe Acrobat 5 hangs.

Are there other software packages which can compare 2 pdf files in a format > v1.4? If not, cleaning up pdf downloads cannot be done under Win98 & may have to be done under WinXP.

Edited September 11, 200817 yr by Multibooter