Welcome > Features in Power PDF Advanced > PDF Compliance Checker

PDF Compliance Checker

This Power PDF Advanced feature checks the compliance of PDF files you create or receive. The PDF/A, PDF/X, PDF/E standards are supported.

For more information on PDF standards and other file formats, see About PDF Versions.

The compliance checker appears in the Compliance panel. This is called from the Panel bar by the following tool:

Compliance icon If you do not see this tool, right-click in an empty area of the Panel bar and select it.

This panel has the following buttons:

  • Options icon Displays different levels of compliance in order of increasing severity. If the current PDF document is a PDF/A document, the list marks the highest level valid for that document with a check sign. Select a compliance level you want to test.

    Compliance levels in the PDF/A family:

    • PDF/A-1a

    • PDF/A-1b

    • PDF/A-2a

    • PDF-A-2b

    • PDF/A-2u

    • PDF/A-3a

    • PDF/A-3b

    • PDF/A-3u

    Compliance levels in the Accessibility family:

    • Accessibility

    • PDF/UA

    Note Beside the PDF/UA check, it is recommended to use the Accessibility check, which has a broader set of options to discover accessibility errors and as a good tool may help to make the document accessible and achieve PDF/UA compliance.

    Compliance levels in the PDF/X family:

    • PDF/X-1a

    • PDF/X-3

    • PDF/X-4

    • PDF/X-4p

    • PDF/X-5g

    • PDF/X-5pg

    • Color Profile

    Compliance levels in the PDF/E family:

    • PDF/E-1

  • Compliance icon Run a check on the current document against the chosen compliance level. Expand the report tree and click the button to the right of each entry for more information.

  • Compliance Fix icon Click Fix to let the program make the necessary modifications to achieve compliance.

    • If critical errors remain after the fix, then an error message appears. Check the message or generate a report for further inspection.
    • If no critical errors remain after the fix, the Save As dialog box appears. Specify a path and file name for the document. For details, see the File Save As dialog box.

  • Compliance Report icon Receive a report in HTML format that lists all problems found.

The following topics give guidance on each non-compliant issue the checker might flag, and how to solve them - either automatically (by clicking Fix) or manually.

Select Accessibility from the Options drop-down list to check accessibility according to criteria presented in four groups:

Document issues

Page Content Issues

Forms, Tables and Lists

Alternate Texts and Headings

Parts of the PDF/A standards deal with accessibility, but their main purpose is to ensure time-proofing for PDF files to be archived for the long term. For more thorough testing of a file's accessibility (mainly by screen reading programs), select Accessibility and click Check.