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PDF to PDF/A

Transform your PDF to PDF/A, the ISO-standardized version for long-term archiving.

Drop your PDF here or click to browse

PDF or image files supported

Convert PDF to PDF/A for long-term archiving

Produce an ISO-standard PDF/A file suitable for archives and legal deposits.

PDF/A is a subset of the PDF standard designed for long-term archiving — fonts are embedded, external references are removed, and encryption is not allowed. This ensures the file will open the same way decades from now.

This tool uses Ghostscript to re-write your PDF as PDF/A-2b. Government tenders, court filings and academic repositories often require PDF/A.

How to use it

  1. 1Upload your PDF.
  2. 2Press Convert to PDF/A.
  3. 3Download the archived PDF/A file.

Real-world use cases

  • Submit a thesis to a university repository that requires PDF/A.
  • Archive an important contract for legal reasons.
  • Prepare a document for a court e-filing portal that demands PDF/A.
  • Store historical records that must be readable decades from now.

Supported formats & limits

Input: any PDF. Output: PDF/A-2b (via Ghostscript). Encrypted PDFs must be unlocked first — PDF/A does not support encryption.

Privacy

Your uploaded file is written to a temporary folder on our server, processed, and deleted by the operating system as soon as the request finishes — typically within seconds. Nothing is stored in our database. Traffic is encrypted over HTTPS.

Full details in the Privacy Policy.

Frequently asked questions

What does PDF/A actually change?▾

Fonts are embedded, colour profiles are added, external content is inlined, encryption is stripped. The visual output stays the same; the internal structure is stricter.

Is the output larger than the input?▾

Sometimes, because fonts and colour profiles are embedded. Run Compress PDF afterwards if size matters.

Which PDF/A conformance level is produced?▾

PDF/A-2b, the most widely accepted level for text-and-images documents.

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