Disclaimer

1. General Disclaimer

CatchDiff ("the Software", "the Service") is provided by CatchDiff ("we", "us") as a utility tool to assist users in identifying textual differences between two PDF documents. The Software is provided "as is" and "as available" without any representations, warranties, or guarantees of any kind, either express or implied.

We expressly disclaim all warranties including but not limited to: merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, non-infringement, and uninterrupted availability.

2. Limitations of Comparison Technology

CatchDiff extracts and compares text content only. The following categories of changes will not be detected:

• Image-embedded content — text, data, or changes contained within images, photographs, charts, diagrams, illustrations, or graphics embedded in a PDF
• Scanned documents (image-based PDFs) — PDFs created by scanning physical documents without embedded text layer. CatchDiff does not perform OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
• Formatting changes — font type, size, weight, color, text alignment, margins, or layout changes where the underlying text is unchanged
• Visual-only changes — watermarks, stamps, signatures (image-based), highlights, or redactions applied as image overlays
• Metadata changes — PDF document metadata, author fields, creation dates, or hidden document properties
• Complex structured content — content in tables, multi-column layouts, or non-linear text flows may be extracted out of order or incompletely
• Digital signatures — the presence, validity, or changes to digital signature fields are not assessed
• Tracked changes in source documents — if the PDF was exported from a Word document with hidden tracked changes, those hidden changes may not be reflected

3. Not Professional or Legal Advice

CatchDiff results do not constitute, and must not be relied upon as, legal advice, financial advice, medical advice, compliance certification, or any other form of professional advice or opinion.

If you are using CatchDiff to review contracts, legal agreements, regulatory filings, medical documents, financial statements, or any other important documents, you must have those documents reviewed by a qualified professional (lawyer, accountant, doctor, compliance officer, etc.) before taking any action. CatchDiff is a starting point, not a final determination.

4. User Responsibility

By using CatchDiff, you acknowledge and agree that:

• You have read and understood this disclaimer in full
• You will independently verify all comparison results before relying on them
• You will not use CatchDiff results as the sole basis for legal, financial, contractual, medical, or regulatory decisions
• You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of your review, not CatchDiff
• You have the legal right to upload and compare the documents you submit
• You will seek qualified professional advice where required

5. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, CatchDiff and its operators shall not be liable for:

• Any loss, damage, or harm arising from reliance on comparison results
• Any missed, incorrect, or incomplete detection of changes between documents
• Any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages
• Loss of profits, contracts, business, revenue, or data arising from use or inability to use the Service
• Decisions made based on CatchDiff output in legal, financial, medical, or any other proceedings

Our total aggregate liability shall not exceed the amount you paid to CatchDiff in the 12 months preceding the claim, or USD $10, whichever is greater.

6. Scanned PDFs & OCR Limitations

CatchDiff extracts text from the embedded text layer of a PDF. It does not perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) — the process of converting scanned images of text into machine-readable text.

A PDF is scanned or image-based when created by:

• Scanning a physical document with a scanner or multifunction printer
• Photographing a document and converting the photo to PDF
• Software that exports PDF as images rather than embedded text
• A destructive PDF flattening process that removes the text layer

For scanned PDFs, CatchDiff will:

• Display a warning banner in the comparison viewer
• Report 0 words per scanned page and detect no text differences — even if visual content changed
• Show empty text panels for all affected pages

What this means in practice:

• If both documents are scanned, CatchDiff will not detect any differences — even if significant changes exist
• If one document is text-based and the other is scanned, results will be incomplete and potentially misleading
• You must use a dedicated OCR tool (Adobe Acrobat, ABBYY FineReader, Google Drive's OCR, etc.) to convert scanned PDFs to text-searchable PDFs before comparison

OCR support is on our roadmap as a future Pro feature. Until then, CatchDiff cannot process scanned or image-based PDFs.

7. AI-Generated Summaries

CatchDiff offers an optional AI Summary feature powered by large language models (Claude by Anthropic or GPT-4 by OpenAI). This feature is subject to the following limitations:

• Summaries are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete. AI models may misinterpret, omit, or hallucinate details about changes in your documents.
• Only detected text changes are summarised. Scanned or image-only content is not visible to the AI — summaries reflect the absence of text, not actual visual changes.
• Summaries are based on excerpts, not full documents. For large documents, only the most changed pages are sent to the AI model.
• Data is sent to third-party AI providers. When you use AI Summary, excerpts of changed text are sent to Anthropic or OpenAI servers. Do not use this feature with confidential, legally privileged, or personally identifiable information unless you have reviewed the AI provider's data processing terms.
• AI summaries are not professional advice. They are a convenience feature — always verify changes manually.

The AI Summary feature is optional and must be explicitly triggered. Standard text comparison does not send any document content to third-party AI services.

8. Desktop Software

The CatchDiff desktop application applies all of the same limitations described in this disclaimer. All PDF comparison is performed locally on your device. The desktop app does not send document content to any server. The same text-extraction limitations apply: scanned PDFs, image-embedded content, and formatting changes will not be detected.

9. Third-Party Documents

CatchDiff does not take any responsibility for the content, accuracy, legality, or authenticity of documents submitted for comparison. Documents submitted are processed solely to produce a textual diff and are immediately deleted after processing.

10. Changes to This Disclaimer

We may update this disclaimer at any time. Material changes will be reflected in the version number and date above. Continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated disclaimer.

11. Contact

Questions about this disclaimer? Email support@catchdiff.com