Convert a PDF to PDF/A
The archival format — and an honest list of what still blocks it.
- Zero-transmission processing
- No watermark
- Limited daily trial
- Unlimited on Pro
Drop your PDFs here
or pick them from your device
Your files are never transmitted. Nothing is uploaded.
Good to know
- Accepts
- Files at once
- One at a time
- Transmission
- None — nothing is uploaded.
Chain it
Run this tool and the next one back to back — nothing to download in between.
How to do it
- 1
Add your file
Add the PDF you need in archival form. PDF/A is what archives, courts and long-term records systems ask for, because it is designed to still open correctly decades from now.
- 2
Set it up the way you want
Nothing to set. Fonts are embedded, transparency and other features that PDF/A forbids are resolved, and the required metadata is written in.
- 3
Download the result
Download the archival copy. It looks the same as your original and will keep looking the same on software that does not exist yet.
Questions about Convert a PDF to PDF/A
- Why does PDF/A exist at all?
- Because an ordinary PDF can depend on things outside itself — a font installed on the machine that made it, a colour profile, an external file. Open it in twenty years on a different system and those may be gone, and the page renders wrong. PDF/A forbids that dependence: everything needed is inside the file.
- Will the file get bigger?
- Usually yes, because fonts that were only referenced now have to be embedded. That is the trade: size in exchange for the document still being readable in twenty years.
- Does this validate against a PDF/A standard?
- It produces PDF/A output; it does not certify compliance against a specific conformance level. If your archive requires a formal validation report, run one — we would rather say this than let you assume a certificate you do not have.