Free PDF accessibility checker
See what in a PDF fails WCAG 2.2 AA and PDF/UA, page by page, and how to fix each problem. No account needed.
What it checks
Every finding names its WCAG criterion and the pages it's on. What only a person can judge is listed separately, so nobody reads a clean result as a pass.
- Tags and structure
- Whether the PDF is tagged at all, and whether its headings, lists, tables and links are tagged the way screen readers expect.
- Images and scans
- Images and formulas with no alt text, and pages that are only a scanned picture with no real text.
- Title and language
- A missing title or one that's just a file name, and a missing or invalid document language.
- Forms
- Fields with no name for screen readers, tab order, and check boxes too small and close together to tap, which is new in WCAG 2.2.
Why PDFs count
A PDF linked from a website is part of it. In the EU, public sector bodies have had to make PDFs they published after September 23, 2018 accessible, under the Web Accessibility Directive. In the US, the ADA Title II rule covers documents on state and local government sites, from April 2027 or April 2028 depending on population.
New uploads are where a site that once passed starts failing again: a flyer exported without tags, a scanned letter, a form with no field names.
Questions
Is my PDF stored?
No. The file is checked while you wait and deleted when the check ends. We keep a count of checks and which problems they found, never the file, its name or what it says.
If nothing fails, is the PDF accessible?
Not on its own. Reading order, whether alt text describes the image, contrast and link text need a person to judge, and every result lists what to check by hand.
Why WCAG 2.2 and PDF/UA?
WCAG is what accessibility laws point to: WCAG 2.1 AA today, and the European standard EN 301 549 moved to WCAG 2.2 in September 2026. PDF/UA-1 (ISO 14289-1) is the standard for how a PDF's tags are built. Where PDF/UA asks for something that doesn't change what a screen reader gets, the result says so and doesn't count it as a WCAG failure.
What does it check with?
veraPDF, the open source PDF/UA validator from the Open Preservation Foundation and the PDF Association, and our own checks for scanned pages, titles, bookmarks and the size of form fields.