The #1 PDF/A Converter

Pdftools offers the most accurate results on the market and ranks among the top two in benchmarks for conversion speed.

Implement PDF/A conversion with the PDF SDK or Conversion Service

Conversion Service

Low-code workflows for PDF/A conversion

The Conversion Service offers a low-code implementation of PDF/A workflows and automatically generates the highest possible PDF/A standard.

Conversion to PDF/A-1, PDF/A-2, PDF/A-3
Optimization and compression options
Built-in conformance validation

Run various PDF/A workflows in the Conversion Service with a trial license

Convert your first PDF

PDF SDK

Programmatic conversion for devs

The PDF SDK provides developers with programmatic control over the conversion process:

Set target conformance and image compression quality
Read encrypted documents; corrupt data and objects are repaired/recovered
Full telemetry for the conversion process

Try out the PDF SDK with our code samples in C, C#, Java, Python, and Visual Basic

Get code samples

Correct archiving for compliance, audits, and more

Document storage and retrieval are important in highly regulated industries, and not adhering to PDF archiving standards can have serious consequences. Pdftools provides detailed telemetry about each conversion.

Archiving

Highly regulated industries like banking and insurance use PDF/A conversion to correctly and safely archive billions of documents

Compliance

Government and legal services can have particularly strict requirements necessary to pass audits

Invoicing

E-invoicing standards combine human-readable PDF/A-3 documents with embedded XML data for automated processing

Prepare invoices for ZUGFeRD and Factur-X e-invoicing

What is PDF/A?

PDF/A is the archival standard (ISO 19005) that regulators and auditors expect

Designed to preserve unaltered

PDF/A preserves formatting, fonts, raster, and vector graphics in a PDF by embedding all the necessary elements into the file

Self-contained and independent

A correctly archived PDF/A will look exactly as it did on the day it was archived one year or ten years from now

The differences between PDF/A standards

Pdftools supports conversion to PDF/A-1, PDF/A-2, and PDF/A-3 standards, including all conformance levels (B, A, and U)

PDF/A-1

Most restrictive PDF/A standard; still required in some legacy workflows

Everything must be embedded (fonts, color profiles)
No transparency, layers, or attachments
Works best for simple text-and-image documents

PDF/A-2

PDF/A-2 is a default for many archiving workflows in regulated industries

Allows transparency, layers, JPEG 2000 compression
Other PDF/A-compliant files can be attached
Useful for more sophisticated and multi-part documents

PDF/A-3

PDF/A-3 is used when non-PDF files need to be attached to an archived PDF

Allows attachment of any file type (incl. XML, Excel, CSV, or even inDesign files)
Particularly useful for e-invoicing where the human-readable PDF has machine-readable XML file attached