Validating PDF /A files

PDF/A is a file format which is used for long-term preservation and archiving. Its extension is pdf. There are multiple PDF formats with the .pdf extension, but not all of them are PDF/A files. PDF/A files conform to one of the below ISO standards.


PDF/A standards

Abbr.	Subtitle	Published	Standard	Based on	Ref.
PDF/A-1	Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4	2005-09-28	ISO 19005-1	PDF 1.4 (Adobe Systems, PDF Reference, third edition)	ISO 19005-1:2005". ISO
PDF/A-2	Part 2: Use of ISO 32000-1	2011-06-20	ISO 19005-2	PDF 1.7 (ISO 32000-1:2008)	ISO 19005-2:2011". ISO.
PDF/A-3	Part 3: Use of ISO 32000-1 with support for embedded files	2012-10-15	ISO 19005-3	PDF 1.7 (ISO 32000-1:2008)	ISO 19005-3:2012". ISO.
PDF/A-4	Part 4: Use of ISO 32000-2	2020-11	ISO 19005-4	PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2:2020)	ISO 19005-4:2020". ISO

PDF/A is a family of ISO standards for constrained forms of PDF (see PDF_family) intended to be suitable for long-term preservation of page-oriented documents for which PDF is already being used in practice. The PDF/A standards are developed and maintained by a working group with representatives from government, industry, and academia and active support from Adobe Systems Incorporated., Read more

• VeraPDF- Sophisticated Open Source tool to validate (and fix) PDF files
• Adobe Preflight Contains a lot of features including PDF/A format validation, included in Acrobat Pro, but not in Acrobat free versions

All assignments under this section are based on results from VeraPDF.  To ensure the operation of automated assignment check, it is recommended that the same app is used, but feel free to try any available applications.