[Scribus] Producing per-page diffs of PDFs?

[Brian Burger]

This is more a PDF question and less a Scribus one, but this is still the
best group I can think of to ask...

Is it possible to produce per-page diffs of two PDFs?

I'd like to take new_version.pdf, diff it against old_version.pdf, and
produce a PDF that has only the changed pages in it - let's call that one
new_pages.pdf. The changes have to be per-page - whole pages extracted from
new_version.pdf to replace the equivalent page in old_version.pdf. The idea
would be to only print new_pages.pdf, then put the pages manually into a
printed version of old_version.pdf.

Here's my use case: Every six months, Transport Canada (TC) produces a large
(almost 500 page) document called the Aviation Information Manual, or AIM.
It's available printed, for money, from Transport, or as HTML or a large PDF
free from their website. Pilos are obliged to keep an up-to-date AIM around
for reference, and currently that means you have to replace the entire AIM
every six months.

A few years ago, TC used to produce only the changed pages, and would mail
them out to you with a changelog so you could update your binder-based copy
of the AIM. This saved a load of paper, and even better, because only parts
of the volume changed, you could save most of the notes, bookmarking,
highlighting and such you had in your copy of the AIM.

To put it in programming terms, TC used to produce diffs - now they only
supply the 'compiled' version!

Anyone know of a script/command/utility that'll do what I want with the
current PDF version of TC's AIM?

I'm also going to write a letter to TC, asking them to make such a PDF
available - I suspect that even if it is possible using the PDFs from TC's
website, it would be easier for TC's staff to do it with the pre-PDF files
only they've got.

Thanks in advance,

Brian
blurdesign at gmail.com
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