CommonLook PDF
AI-assisted PDF accessibility remediation in the browser or as an Acrobat plug-in, with PDF/UA, WCAG and HHS validation.
Jobs Accessibility Edit
Operated by Allyant
Opens the vendor's own site.
Jobs covered
Open a task to see exactly what the vendor documentation supports.
Accessibility
Browse all accessibility toolsremediating an existing PDF for accessibility with CommonLook PDF in the web or Acrobat plug-in edition, using AI-driven automatic tagging, advanced or simplified editing, manual tagging, structural fixes for tables/lists/forms and other document elements, and validation against PDF/UA, WCAG and HHS with a downloadable report of passed, failed and warning issues. The scope records validation/checking and the documented remediation/editing workflow, while making clear that a vendor validation report and automated/manual tagging are not a guarantee of semantic or legal accessibility compliance and do not replace human review
Edit
Browse all edit toolsediting an existing PDF's accessibility structure in CommonLook PDF's Advanced or Simplified editor: correcting the tag tree, reading order, alt text, headings, tables/lists and form-field labels, applying structural fixes and re-validating the remediated PDF. The scope is limited to the documented accessibility-remediation editing workflow and does not claim generic body-text/word-processor authoring, OCR, arbitrary content editing or a general PDF editor; OCR and interactive-element creation are described by the vendor as separate pre-remediation steps, not as CommonLook's own OCR capability
Where your files are processed
Mixed - depends on version and feature
The vendor's own documentation separates them. On the device: The Acrobat plug-in, Windows, The Acrobat plug-in, macOS. On their servers: The web edition. A single answer for the whole product would be wrong for one of them.
Mixed by edition. The web edition is upload-based: the documented workflow starts with Upload a PDF and ends with Download accessible files, and Allyant's privacy policy says documents submitted for processing are handled on servers in the United States and/or Canada.
The desktop edition is an Adobe Acrobat Pro/Pro DC plug-in and runs inside Acrobat on the local machine, but no Allyant page was found stating that it never uploads, so this record does not infer an absolute local-only answer. The field stays null because one boolean would be wrong for one of the editions.
What it does
CommonLook PDF is Allyant's commercial PDF accessibility remediation product. It auto-tags documents with AI, provides advanced and simplified editing paths, supports manual tagging and structural fixes for tables, lists, forms and document elements, validates output against PDF/UA, WCAG and HHS, and attaches a downloadable validation report to each remediated file.
It is sold in two delivery modes: a web application and a desktop edition that Allyant's support guide describes as an Adobe Acrobat Pro or Pro DC plug-in (formerly CommonLook PDF GlobalAccess). The desktop product's current published version is 5.17, dated 11 September 2024; the web app's version is not published on the current product/resource pages, so no single version is asserted for both.
Editing means remediating an existing PDF's accessibility structure and tags, reading order, alt text, headings, tables/lists and form-field labels in the Advanced or Simplified editor - not generic body-text authoring in a word processor. Pricing is quote-only; the only public entry point is a request form for a free 7-day trial or a demo.
The trial is not a free tier, and the separate CommonLook PDF Validator is a different free product. The web edition is upload-based; the desktop edition runs inside Acrobat, and no absolute no-upload guarantee is made for it.
Best for
Large teams and non-technical staff who have to clear a backlog of inaccessible PDFs and want a guided, standards-mapped remediation workflow with validation reports, rather than a bare tag editor.
Worth knowing
The product is quote-only: no price or checkout is published, and the free 7-day trial is a time-limited sales form, not a free tier. The web edition is upload-based and Allyant's privacy policy says submitted documents are processed/stored on servers in the United States and/or Canada; the desktop edition is an Acrobat plug-in that runs locally, but no current page states it never uploads, so the record does not claim all-local processing.
The desktop product's latest published version is 5.17 (11 September 2024); the web app's version is not exposed, so do not treat 5.17 as the web version. Editing is accessibility-structure remediation of existing PDFs - tags, reading order, alt text, headings, tables/lists and form-field labels - not generic body-text editing, OCR or a full document editor.
AI/manual tagging and a passing PDF/UA/WCAG/HHS check are not a guarantee of semantic or legal compliance; human review remains necessary, and the vendor itself warns that automation alone is not sufficient for complex content. PDF/UA, WCAG and HHS support is the vendor's claim about its checkpoints, not an independent certification or a validator guarantee.
The separate CommonLook PDF Validator is not this product. Owner is recorded as the Allyant trading name; the legal operating entity is NetCentric Technologies Inc. doing business as CommonLook, now trading as Allyant.
No source licence is offered.
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
- Web · Windows · macOS
- Website
- allyant.com
- Requires an account
- Yes
- Free tier
- No
- Watermark on trial output
- Not verified
- Maximum file size
- Not verified
- Batch processing
- Not verified
- Data residency
- Multiple regions
- Open source
- No
- Self-hostable
- No
- Licence
-
Proprietary commercial software from Allyant (legal entity NetCentric Technologies...
Proprietary commercial software from Allyant (legal entity NetCentric Technologies Inc., doing business as CommonLook, now trading as Allyant). No public price list or checkout is published; the purchase path is a request form for a free 7-day trial or a demo quote.
The 7-day trial is time-limited and is not a free tier. The separate CommonLook PDF Validator is a different free product in the suite, not a free edition of CommonLook PDF.
No source licence is offered.
- Redaction
- No redaction feature
- Programmatic access
- None
- Last availability check
- Responded in 153 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.
https://allyant.com/pdf-accessibility-software-solutions/commonlook-pdf/
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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“CommonLook PDF supports multiple accessibility standards, including PDF/UA, WCAG, and HHS to ensure your organization complies with laws like Section 508, ADA Title II, EAA, and others.”
Reported by the vendor Read 16 October 2026
Current and exact. The same page states that each accessible PDF comes with a validation report and that support covers PDF/UA, WCAG and HHS.
The claim is about the vendor's supported checkpoints, not a guarantee that every document will comply or that the tool is an independent validator.
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
- 7c63d0fcae3b5f500072de27ab2c472f26456e41bb8e9a09f6641927bc2a5899
How we checked
Re-read the current product page on 2026-10-16; the wording is present. The claim is recorded as the vendor's standards-support statement, not as an independent certification.
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“It's the brand that's been trusted by tens of thousands of customers for decades - built by the leaders who help write the global standards for PDF accessibility - designed for users of every ability.”
Reported by the vendor Read 16 October 2026
Present as vendor marketing but unsupported and not independently verifiable. Downgraded from verified to reported rather than treated as a factual claim about customer numbers or standards authorship.
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
- 7c63d0fcae3b5f500072de27ab2c472f26456e41bb8e9a09f6641927bc2a5899
How we checked
Re-read the current product page on 2026-10-16. The sentence is present, but the customer count, decades and standards-leadership assertions are marketing claims with no supporting evidence on the page.
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.