Make a PDF accessible
An inaccessible PDF is a legal problem as well as a usability one: public-sector and regulated bodies are required to publish documents a screen reader can actually read, and a PDF exported from a word processor almost never qualifies. The work splits in two - checking a document against a standard, and tagging it so the check passes. Very few tools do both well.
A passing check is not the same as an accessible document. These tools run the machine-checkable requirements of the standards, and a full set of green results means only that those were met. Reading order, the wording of alternative text, and whether the document makes sense to a person are not machine-checkable, so somebody has to read it as well.
27 tools here do less than the name of this job suggests, and each one's profile says what it actually does. That sentence is on the profile rather than repeated on every row.
27 options · Sources read 16 October 2026 · The accessibility verdicts here are from vendor documentation and from checkers’ own descriptions of what they test. We have not run a conformance audit on any document.
- What it takes, and what it produces
- In: a PDF, often with the document it was produced from. Out: a tagged or remediated PDF, or a report on one.
- What limits it
- Automated checking has a ceiling rather than a quota: it cannot tell you whether the tags describe what a reader will hear. Where remediation can be done without the source document, the vendor provides it, and where it can not, the record says so.
Accessibility tools: controls, file handling and cost
These are different ways to do the same job. The order does not indicate quality, and where we have not checked something the row says so rather than guessing.
- 27
- tools handle this job
- 16
- keep the file on your device
- Observed by us, or no server anywhere in the path. Of the other 11: 8 upload your file; 3 process some versions on your device and run others on a server.
27 tools for accessibility
Ordered by relevance to this job, not by payment. Our overall ranking is in the full index.
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Our pick 9: Free PDF/UA validation under a dual licence, backed by a consortium rather than a single vendor.
- Price Free tierLicence CommercialYour files Uploads - claimed
Choosing between them
- PAC vs axesCheck The same PDF accessibility checker, twice, from the same company.
- veraPDF vs PAC Two ways to check a PDF against PDF/UA.
Every listing here is a real product with a real website, checked for whether it is still working. Nothing on this page is paid for and no placement can be bought. Where we have not verified something, the row says so rather than guessing.
Choosing between checking a document and fixing it
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Checking against a standard
A checker runs the machine-testable rules of PDF/UA or WCAG and lists what fails. It is fast, repeatable, and it cannot tell whether the alternative text describes the picture.
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Tagging so a check passes
Remediation adds the structure a screen reader needs: headings, lists, tables, reading order, alternative text. This is the slow half and the one that decides whether the document is actually usable.
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Doing both
Very few tools check and remediate well. Most are strong at one, and the pairing matters more than the individual scores.
A checker passing is not the same as a document being accessible. The requirements that matter most to a reader, whether alternative text is meaningful and whether the reading order makes sense, are judgements software cannot make, and the free checkers in this index say so themselves.
Check the result
- - Run a checker, then read the report rather than only the pass or fail line.
- - Read the alternative text of two images and ask whether it would help somebody who cannot see them.
- - Navigate the document with only the keyboard, or with a screen reader, following the reading order.
- - Check that headings are tagged as headings rather than only styled to look like them.
Sources and scope
Every fact on this page comes from a vendor's own page. Each profile records the URL we read, the date, and the SHA-256 of the text, so a reader can check the bytes.
- PAC 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDFix 3 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- veraPDF 2 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- CommonLook PDF 2 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- Adobe Acrobat 4 sourced claims, read 21 September 2026
- Adobe PDF Accessibility Auto-Tag API 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- Equidox 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- pdfaPilot 1 sourced claim, read 16 October 2026
- pdfToolbox 1 sourced claim, read 1 October 2026
- axesPDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- AccessibilityNow 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- Allyant PDF Validator 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- axesCheck 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- pdfGoHTML 1 sourced claim, read 16 October 2026
- RoboBraille 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- SensusAccess 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- PREP 3 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- CommonLook Office 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Level Access 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
- Syncfusion PDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Telerik Document Processing Libraries 3 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- IronPDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- PDF Studio 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- Aspose.PDF 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- iText 2 sourced claims, read 22 September 2026
- ReportLab 2 sourced claims, read 16 October 2026
- PDFlib 2 sourced claims, read 1 October 2026
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