EqualWeb PDF Tools vs veraPDF

EqualWeb PDF Tools combines PDF accessibility checking, automated remediation, expert manual remediation, and an accessible in-browser viewer. Its checker performs more than 80 automated checks across eight categories and returns a score from 0 to 100 with a detailed report. AI remediation can address document structure, reading order, alternative text, tables, forms, fonts, text encoding, contrast, language, and metadata. Scanned PDFs can receive OCR and remediation, up to 400 pages. Batch processing supports up to 1,000 PDFs; individual files can be as large as 400 pages and 100 MB, though larger files may be uploaded and flagged during an audit. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files can be converted to accessible PDF or HTML, and PDFs to accessible HTML. The product says it remediates and validates against WCAG 2.2, PDF/UA-1 and PDF/UA-2, Section 508, and EN 301 549. A REST API handles uploads, audits, reports, remediation, downloads, and batches, with access requested from EqualWeb. Auto AI Tag is optimized for English and Latin-script documents.

veraPDF is an open source validator for PDF/A and PDF/UA conformance. Its Implementation Checker validates all PDF/A parts and conformance levels, and performs machine checks for PDF/UA parts 1 and 2. The Policy Checker evaluates PDF Features Reports against institutional policy profiles. A Metadata Fixer makes a limited set of repairs, such as removing an incorrect PDF/A flag or repairing broken XMP when that is the only obstacle to a legitimate flag. The Reporter transforms machine-readable reports from the Implementation Checker, Policy Checker, and Metadata Fixer into other forms for downstream use. Developers can use the validation library as a Java archive through Maven, a desktop GUI, or a command-line application. Plugins can add third-party feature extraction tools to PDF Features Reports. The project describes digital preservationists and memory institutions as key users, and offers an API and test files for developers. Desktop installers are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux; these systems need Java 8 or later. veraPDF is dual licensed under GPLv3 or later and MPLv2 or later. Downloads include GPG signatures and instructions to check installer integrity. Development builds may contain bugs or missing features and come without support or guarantees. The validator costs nothing.