Convert a PDF to PDF/A
PDF/A is the version of PDF built to still open in twenty years. Everything a reader needs has to be inside the file: the fonts embedded rather than borrowed from the computer, the colours defined rather than assumed, no encryption, and nothing that reaches out to the network. Courts, funding bodies, journals and national archives ask for it by name, and an ordinary PDF exported from a word processor usually fails on the fonts alone. This converts one into the other. Choose the standard the archive asked for — PDF/A-2b suits almost everything, 1b is the oldest and strictest, 3b is the one that may carry attachments — and the document is rewritten to meet it. The result looks the same to a reader and behaves the same in a viewer; what changes is what it no longer depends on.
How it works
Upload your PDF
Drag the file onto the page or use the file picker.
Choose the standard
PDF/A-2b unless the archive named another one.
Convert and download
The archival PDF is ready to download, and is deleted from our servers two hours later.
Frequently asked questions
- Which standard should I choose?
- PDF/A-2b unless you were told otherwise. 1b is the oldest and most restrictive and is what some older systems insist on. 3b is 2b plus the right to carry attached files.
- Will it look different afterwards?
- It should not. Fonts that were referenced get embedded and colour gets defined, so a page can end up slightly larger, but the layout is the same.
- Why did my file get bigger?
- Because the fonts are now inside it. That is the point of the format: nothing is borrowed from the machine that opens the file.
- Can you convert a PDF/A back to an ordinary PDF?
- There is nothing to convert. A PDF/A is a valid PDF and opens anywhere a PDF does.
- Is this checked against the standard?
- The file is written to the profile you choose and carries the metadata that declares it. We do not run a separate validator over the result, so an archive that validates strictly may still have something to say about an unusual source document.