Convert to PDF/A online, free
PDF/A is the archival standard: a PDF that will still open and look the same in twenty years, because everything it needs — fonts, colour definitions, image data — is carried inside the file rather than assumed to exist on whatever computer opens it. Institutions, courts and long-term records systems require it. Bring a PDF you already have and convert it, or convert a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document straight to PDF/A with no intermediate step.
A dropdown is not a promise
The thing worth knowing before you use any PDF/A converter is that the standard has three parts, 1, 2 and 3, at up to three conformance levels each — and a picker listing all of them is not a promise that all of them can be produced. We know that failure intimately, because our own previous version had it: it offered six levels and three of them returned an error every single time, because the engine behind it never supported them. A picker that fails on half its options is worse than one that is honest about three.
What happens when a level cannot be produced
This tool accepts every level, and where one cannot genuinely be produced it converts at the nearest one that can and tells you — returning the level you asked for, the level you got, and why they differ. You are never left holding a file you believe is PDF/A-3a when it is not.
The honest picture no competitor page will give you
Levels 1b, 2b and 3b are produced exactly as asked. The a levels additionally require a full tagged logical structure — headings, reading order, alt text — which is a property of your source document, not something a converter can invent. If your file does not have it, no tool on earth can stamp that conformance truthfully.
Which part to choose
Part 1 is the most conservative and the most widely demanded by institutions — pick it when a body has told you to. Part 2 allows JPEG 2000 compression, transparency and layers, and suits general archiving. Part 3 additionally lets you embed arbitrary files alongside the document, so a signed invoice can carry its own source data.
What the conversion actually does
Fonts are embedded, colour is made device-independent, and the conformance marker is written into the file where a validator will find it. A PDF you already have is converted in place: the text, fonts and layout are not re-rendered, so nothing shifts on the page. Up to 10 documents per request, deleted from the server an hour later.
What you get
- Real conformance, with the level you asked for and the level you got both reported
- Levels 1b, 2b and 3b produced exactly as requested
- An honest explanation when an a level cannot be certified from your source
- Fonts embedded and colour made device-independent
- In-place conversion for existing PDFs — nothing re-rendered, nothing shifts
- Up to 10 documents per request, deleted within an hour
What's next?
Converting an office document instead of a PDF? Word to PDF, Excel to PDF and PowerPoint to PDF can each produce PDF/A directly. If the document has fillable fields that should be locked before archiving, Flatten PDF makes them permanent first.