Convert PDF to PDF/A for long-term archiving
Convert a PDF into PDF/A, the ISO-standardised format designed for long-term preservation. Upload your document and download a version built to remain readable decades from now. Free, immediate, and no software required.
An ordinary PDF is allowed to depend on things outside itself. It can reference a font installed on the reader's computer rather than embedding it. It can link to external content. It can contain JavaScript, embedded media, and features that only certain software understands.
All of this works today. The problem is the timescale of archiving. In twenty years the referenced font may not exist on any current system, the linked content will almost certainly have moved or vanished, and the software that understood a particular feature may no longer be made. The document opens, but it does not look the way it did — text reflows because a substitute font has different metrics, images are missing, and the layout that carried the meaning is gone.
PDF/A eliminates the dependencies. Everything required to display the document exactly as intended must be contained within the file. Nothing external, nothing conditional, nothing that requires a particular piece of software.
Fonts must be embedded. Every typeface used is included in the file, so text renders identically regardless of what is installed on the machine opening it. This is the single most important requirement and the one that prevents the most common form of archival degradation.
Colour must be unambiguous. Colour profiles are embedded so that colours reproduce consistently rather than being interpreted differently by different systems.
JavaScript is prohibited. Executable content is a security concern and a dependency on an interpreter that may not exist in the future.
External references are prohibited. A document that depends on something it does not contain is not self-sufficient.
Audio and video are prohibited. Media codecs change and the format cannot guarantee they will remain playable.
Encryption is prohibited. A password protecting an archive is a password that will eventually be lost, taking the document with it.
Courts and legal filing systems frequently mandate PDF/A for submissions. Government departments require it for records subject to retention schedules. Universities specify it for thesis and dissertation deposits. Libraries and archives use it as their standard preservation format. Medical records departments rely on it for documents that must remain readable for decades. Regulated industries — pharmaceutical, financial, aerospace — use it for compliance documentation with long retention requirements.
Beyond formal requirements, it is a sensible default for anything genuinely important: contracts, certificates, deeds, and records you expect to need long after the software that created them is obsolete.
Upload your PDF by dragging it onto the box or clicking to browse. The conversion embeds the fonts and colour information the standard requires and removes features it prohibits. Download the archival version.
Open the result and compare it against the original, paying particular attention to any unusual typography. Font embedding occasionally shifts spacing very slightly, and it is worth confirming the document reads as intended before it goes into an archive you will not revisit for years.
This is expected and not a fault. Embedding complete font files adds to the file size, sometimes substantially for documents using several typefaces. It is the direct cost of self-sufficiency, and for an archival document it is the right trade — a larger file that renders correctly in 2050 is worth considerably more than a smaller one that does not.
Do not compress a PDF/A file afterwards, as compression may strip the embedded resources the standard requires and break compliance.
Your document is processed in memory and discarded the instant your download completes. Nothing is written to disk, nothing is logged, and no copy is retained.
Repair PDF recovers damaged files before archiving. PDF Metadata sets proper titles and descriptions, which matters for catalogued archives. Merge PDF combines related documents into a single archival record.