axesPDF
Windows desktop accessibility checker and fixer for tagged PDFs, with PDF/UA machine checks and one-click repairs.
Jobs Accessibility Edit
Operated by axes4 GmbH
Opens the vendor's own site.
Jobs covered
Open a task to see exactly what the vendor documentation supports.
Edit
Browse all edit toolschecking and correcting tagged PDF accessibility structure and Unicode mappings for PDF/UA and WCAG in the axesPDF desktop app; not general PDF editing
Where your files are processed
No server involved
An installed Windows desktop application. The vendor states its AI-assisted checks run exclusively locally and access no cloud service or internet connection.
Installed desktop application, and the vendor states the AI runs 'exclusively locally, on the computer on which axesPDF is running. It does not access cloud services or the internet in any way', and that documents are not used to train it.
Downloads and licence activation are online, but checking and fixing do not send the document anywhere. Vendor-reported, not independently probed - the free web checker at check.axes4.com is a different axes4 product and does upload.
What it does
axesPDF is a Windows desktop application for checking and repairing the accessibility of an already-tagged PDF. It runs the 89 machine-testable PDF/UA error conditions into one interactive report, then takes you straight to the offending tag so you can fix it: rename tags in bulk, repair Unicode mappings, tag content as an artefact, generate bookmarks and link targets, and around 50 other one-click repairs.
Version 2.5 adds AI-assisted checks for semantic structure such as headings, lists, tables and captions, and the vendor states that model runs entirely on the local machine.
Best for
Remediation specialists and accessibility teams on Windows who inherit tagged PDFs that fail PDF/UA and need to locate and repair faults in the tag structure quickly.
Worth knowing
It assumes a tagged PDF and is neither an auto-tagging tool nor a batch tool - bulk and server-side work is the vendor's separate axesFlip product - and it is Windows 10/11 only. axes4 is also explicit that the AI does not check the wording of alternative text and does not check reading order, which are the two things people most often assume 'AI checks' will settle. Unlicensed, it runs in a demo mode whose output is watermarked.
Details, and where each comes from
Vendor statements, our own reading of their pages, and the things nobody has established yet, each answered separately. Where we have not confirmed something it says so rather than guessing, and a row nobody has established is greyed out.
- Versions covered
- Windows
- Website
- axes4.com
- Requires an account
- No
- Free tier
- No
- Watermark on trial output
- Yes
- Maximum file size
- Not verified
- Batch processing
- No
- Data residency
- Self-hosted
- Open source
- No
- Self-hostable
- No
- Licence
- Proprietary subscription, per user, 1- or 2-year term
- Redaction
- No redaction feature
- Programmatic access
- None
- Last availability check
- Responded in 1136 ms 21 October 2026
Checked automatically by our own runner, not reported by the vendor. 100% of our last 30 checks got a response.
What the redaction verdict rests on
From the vendor's own documentation, read 22 September 2026. Not tested by us.
What that does not establish
The vendor’s own site was read on 22 September 2026 and contains no mention of redaction, sanitisation, blackout or whiteout. Absence from a vendor’s own material is not proof that a feature does not exist - it may be undocumented, or on a page the reading did not reach - but for a NEGATIVE claim it is the strongest evidence available, and it is weaker than a positive quote.
Recorded as such rather than presented as certainty.
What the vendor says
Claims are labelled rather than repeated as fact. Where we have checked something ourselves, it says so and shows when. Checked means we read the vendor's own page and it says what we recorded - not that we tested the behaviour, unless the note says we did.
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“axesPDF simplifies the process of making content fully accessible and compliant with PDF/UA, WCAG, and Section 508.”
Checked by us - the source says this Read 22 September 2026
Confirmed verbatim: "axesPDF simplifies the process of making content fully accessible and compliant with PDF/UA, WCAG, and Section 508." The page substantiates it with numbers rather than adjectives, which is unusual and worth recording: the checker reports "all 89 machine-checkable error conditions" in one summary, and the fixer handles "more than 50 types of PDF/UA errors that are otherwise difficult to fix". The same page also carries the same machine-checkable caveat that axesCheck does, since both use the Matterhorn model.
This is the companion claim to axesPDF's local-AI claim verified in the previous batch, and the two were written by the same vendor about the same product; both are recorded as descriptions rather than observations, and neither has been tested.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- e1cf65eab18b7a1efbb7cf1363f86d00442d0df9604d0481a9de988bdfe615f5
How we checked
Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://www.axes4.com/en/desktop-software/axespdf re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-www-axes4-com-en-desktop-software-axespdf-ec2698b1.txt.
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“The AI runs exclusively locally, on the computer on which axesPDF is running. It does not access cloud services or the internet in any way. Accordingly, your PDF documents always remain on your computer and are not used to train the AI.”
Checked by us - the source says this Read 22 September 2026
Confirmed verbatim, and asserted twice on the same page rather than once: the claim's paragraph appears in the body, and the page's FAQ repeats it under the question "Will axesPDF access the internet for AI testing?" with the answer "No. The AI model is delivered with axesPDF and runs entirely locally." That is the strongest form this corroboration takes short of a test.
One thing to read carefully: the page also says the AI "was trained using many accessible PDFs", which is about training data rather than about customer documents, and the claim's final clause - that your documents "are not used to train the AI" - is the vendor's assurance about a model that ships pre-trained. This is the only claim in this batch whose subject is a desktop application whose behaviour could in principle be settled by observation rather than by reading, and it has not been tested here; a network capture during a run would be the way to do it.
Recorded as the vendor's description; no control was run.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- c45fc3ed0e1a8e0ad5e5c4c45639fb976fd73d5f9de5a87a43aa6b3044123475
How we checked
Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://www.axes4.com/en/desktop-software/axespdf/ai-checks-in-axespdf re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-www-axes4-com-en-desktop-software-axespdf-ai-checks-in-axe-f73e3808.txt.
Each claim is quoted from the vendor's own pages. This section describes what we have and have not checked - it is not a judgement about anyone.
Sponsorship is distribution, not an endorsement or a promise of search rankings, AI citations, traffic, or sales. This listing is a free entry, compiled from published sources.
Related reading
- Checking a PDF for accessibility - what makes a PDF accessible, and how it is checked.
- Which PDF tools keep your file on your machine - what we count as processing on your own device.
Other tools from axes4 GmbH
- axesCheck - Free browser-based PDF/UA and WCAG accessibility checker that needs no installation.
- PAC - Free Windows accessibility checker for PDF/UA and WCAG, with local AI-assisted semantic checks.
axes4 publishes PAC and its site, and has maintained PAC since 2023. PAC itself has existed since 2010. Source: pdf-accessibility.org imprint, published by axes4 GmbH , read 2026-10-16.