LaTeXdiff Online - Compare Two .tex Files in Your Browser<br>Skip to content

★★★★★<br>5.0 · 500+ Projects Delivered<br>LaTeXdiff Online<br>Free Tool, No Perl install, No Terminal<br>Use LaTexdiff Online to compare two .tex files and instantly see what changed. Paste your original and revised LaTeX files, then generate a marked-up version for journals, supervisors, or co-authors.

Paste .tex

Upload project (.zip)

original.tex<br>Before

Original .tex source

revised.tex<br>After

Revised .tex source

original.zip<br>Before

.zip

Choose file or drop file here

Click to replace

revised.zip<br>After

.zip

Choose file or drop file here

Click to replace

Advanced options

Marking style<br>UNDERLINECHANGEBARCFONTCTRADITIONALBOLDPDFCOMMENT

Deletion style<br>COLORDVIPSCOLFONTSTRIKESAFE

Float handling<br>IDENTICALFLOATSAFETRADITIONALSAFE

Math markup<br>coarsefinewholeoff

Generate Diff Files stay private. We process the diff and discard the input immediately.

diff.tex

Copy<br>Download

Your diff is ready. We also do submission-ready LaTeX formatting and typesetting.

Get a quote<br>See our journal formatting services

How it works

Paste the old version<br>Drop the original version of your .tex file into the box on the left.

Step 1

Paste the new version<br>Drop the revised version into the box on the right.

Step 2

Click Generate Diff<br>You get a third .tex file with \DIFadd{...} around additions and \DIFdel{...} around deletions. Compile it with pdflatex to see additions in blue and deletions in red strikethrough.

Step 3

That is the whole tool. The work happens server-side using the real latexdiff Perl script from CTAN, not a JavaScript approximation.

Options explained

type<br>How additions are marked. UNDERLINE wavy-underlines them, CHANGEBAR puts a vertical bar in the margin, CFONT uses a different font. Switch to CHANGEBAR if your journal asks for marginal change marks rather than inline markup.

UNDERLINE<br>default

subtype<br>How deletions are marked. COLOR uses red strikethrough, FONTSTRIKE strikes through without colour, SAFE is the most conservative. Use SAFE if \DIFdel is breaking your document, since some journal classes redefine commands that conflict.

COLOR<br>default

floattype<br>How figures and tables are handled. IDENTICAL leaves them alone unless content changed, FLOATSAFE wraps every float in protective commands. Use FLOATSAFE if floats are silently disappearing in the diffed output.

IDENTICAL<br>default

math-markup<br>How equations are diffed. coarse marks any changed equation as one block, fine diffs inside the equation, whole always marks the whole equation, off ignores math changes. Use fine to see exactly which symbols changed, though it is fragile.

coarse<br>default

Limitation

Single .tex file only<br>If your paper uses \input{} or \include{} to pull in chapters, the tool will not flatten them automatically. Inline everything first, or wait for the multi-file version.

For now

File size cap<br>Larger than any realistic single-file paper.

500KB / file

Request timeout<br>Long enough for any normal paper.

30 seconds

Output is .tex, not PDF<br>You still need to compile it. The diffed file requires the ulem package.

Compile it

Not a Track Changes editor<br>The diff is a read-only snapshot, not an accept or reject interface.

Read-only

What latexdiff actually does

Marks every change<br>latexdiff is a Perl script that compares two LaTeX source files and produces a third LaTeX file with the changes marked up using two macros: \DIFadd{...} for insertions and \DIFdel{...} for deletions. When you compile that third file with pdflatex, the additions appear in blue and the deletions appear in red strikethrough. The ulem package handles the strikethrough.

It understands LaTeX<br>It is not a text diff. A plain diff tool would compare your files line by line and miss the LaTeX structure entirely — it would flag a renamed \section{} as a complete rewrite even if you only changed one word. latexdiff understands LaTeX. It diffs paragraphs, sentences, equations, and citations as separate units, and it leaves the document compilable on the other side.

Why researchers use it<br>This matters because most researchers use latexdiff for one of three reasons: tracking what changed between drafts when working with co-authors, generating a revision file for journal resubmission, or sanity-checking changes during a thesis revision pass. Many journals require authors to upload both a clean manuscript and a marked-up revision showing all changes — latexdiff is the standard way to produce that second file. None of these workflows work with a generic text diff.

Why run it online<br>The catch is installation. latexdiff ships with TeX Live and MiKTeX on most Linux and Mac setups, but Windows users almost always hit a wall — latexdiff is a Perl script, and Perl is not preinstalled on Windows. You end up installing Strawberry Perl, then pointing TeX Live at it, then dealing with path issues. Overleaf users hit a different wall: latexdiff is built into Overleaf's Track Changes feature, but that...