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We write a software that create PDF files. How we can check if the resulting pdf files are PDF/A compatible? Are there any test suite for it available?

Martin Thoma
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Horcrux7
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5 Answers5

43

A list of PDF/A validators is on the pdfa.org web site here:

verapdf

A free online PDF/A validator is available here:

http://www.validatepdfa.com/

A report on the accuracy of many of these PDF/A validators is available from PDFLib:

https://www.pdflib.com/fileadmin/pdflib/pdf/pdfa/2009-05-04-Bavaria-report-on-PDFA-validation-accuracy.pdf

Se as well:

https://www.pdflib.com/knowledge-base/pdfa/

Wollmich
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Craig Lebakken
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    This one is open source https://github.com/gba-awl/padaf – Goran Rakic Sep 08 '11 at 18:53
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    Now known as PDFBox Preflight https://pdfbox.apache.org/downloads.html#recent – Tilman Hausherr Nov 17 '14 at 22:11
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    Unfortunately the link at pdf.org is not available any more. At http://verapdf.org you will probably find the most "official" online tool for PDF validation. It is quite new and afaik in Beta. Until this changes I also stick with the preflight-validation of Adobe Acrobat – rominator007 Mar 01 '17 at 10:17
22

The 3-Heights™ PDF Validator Online Tool provides good feedback for different PDF/A conformance levels and versions.

  • PDF/A1-a
  • PDF/A2-a
  • PDF/A2-b
  • PDF/A1-b
  • PDF/A2-u
Ryan Gates
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    http://www.pdf-tools.com/pdf/pdf-validateur-pdfa-valider-iso.aspx – FAjir Oct 23 '14 at 14:05
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    Free and no spam risk. +1 for this answer. thanks – Sylvain Rayé Feb 27 '15 at 14:04
  • Very nice. This gives me a list of "violations" of PDF/A for my file, such as _The value of the key Parent is 271 0 R but must be 208 0 R._ But I have no idea how to "fix" these. I tried saving in the free adobe acrobat but it doesn't help. – Michael Jul 23 '18 at 23:10
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    Here is something that just worked for me on my mac laptop: I opened my (ordinary) PDF file in the mac "Preview" software. I "printed" it as a .ps file. I then re-opened the .ps file in Preview and saved as PDF. It now passes the pdf/a compliance. – Michael Jul 23 '18 at 23:40
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    Thanks @Michael, that was helpful! For those on Linux, I tried something similar which also worked: I opened the file on [evince](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evince), and printed it to a PDF file. The resulting file passed PDF/A validation! Note that simply doing "File > Save as" was not sufficient; I had to use the Print menu for this to work. – waldyrious Aug 01 '19 at 21:45
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pdf validation with OPEN validator:

DROID (Digital Record Object Identification) https://github.com/digital-preservation/droid/

JHOVE - JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment https://jhove.openpreservation.org/

ingyhere
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stof
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    DROID doesn't validate, it only identifies. JHOVE does validate PDFs, but not PDF/A. – Andy Jackson May 30 '13 at 14:54
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    Jhove does validate PDF/A. Check there site: [link](http://jhove.sourceforge.net/pdf-hul.html).... – Ibn Saeed Oct 26 '14 at 08:17
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    Ibn Saeed: citing from the linked doc: Note that the PDF module does not parse the contents on streams, so it cannot determine conformance to PDF/A to the degree required by the ISO standard. – mykhal Jun 29 '15 at 14:33
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    @mykhal «That is not possible, since parts of the PDF/A rules are not machine-checkable AFAIK (like "metadata matches data" -- jhove is unable to understand the semantics of your document).» http://www.konradvoelkel.com/2013/03/scan-to-pdfa/#comment-2705 – Nemo Oct 05 '15 at 15:09
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    Jhove's PDF/A module is quite buggy. Its output is nearly meaningless. – jbarlow Feb 20 '17 at 21:58
6

Do you have Adobe PDFL or Acrobat Professional? You can use preflight operation if you do.

dirkgently
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-6

If you download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader, it will tell you if your pdf is PDF/A compliant. Just open the PDF file and a big blue marking should appear.

OpenOffice supports PDF/A. For some reason "PDF/A-1" is called 

"SelectPdfVersion"
internally in OpenOffice. Just add 1 to that value and your output should be PDF/A.

The different values can be

0 = PDFXNONE
1 = PDFX1A2001
2 = PDFX32002
3 = PDFA1A
4 = PDFA1B

You set 

FilterData
to be a 
HashMap('SelectPdfVersion',1) //1 for PDFX1A2001
Shervin Asgari
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    This is wrong. The Reader show only if the PDF/A signature is available. Not if it is a valid PDF/A file. – Horcrux7 Mar 18 '10 at 12:50
  • @Horcrux7 can you site your sources for this? How do you know this? I have used a few API's that generate PDF/A and non PDF/A compliant files. When I produce a PDF/A file, Adobe Reader 10 will launch with an informational bar at top:O "The file you have opened complies with the PDF/A standard and has been opened read-only to prevent modification". Can you share what you know about this?L – JohnZaj Jul 19 '12 at 03:35
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    We have write a software that generate PDF and PDF/A files (see my original posting). That I know that also not PDF/A compliance files was show as PDF/A file in Adobe Reader. We need only write the PDF/A signature. – Horcrux7 Jul 25 '12 at 20:07