PDF/UA API

PDF/UA API is a self-hosted HTTP API designed to generate accessible PDF documents that comply with PDF/A-3a and PDF/UA standards. It addresses the need for automated creation of tagged, standards-compliant PDFs, ensuring features such as tagged structure, declared document language, and embedded fonts for accessibility. The tool is suitable for developers and organizations seeking to produce accessible documents directly from web content or structured data.

The API offers three primary methods for creating PDFs. Users can convert a complete HTML document by sending it to a specific endpoint, making it suitable for workflows that already generate markup or use templating engines. Alternatively, a public URL can be provided, allowing the API to fetch and convert the corresponding HTML content. For structured documents like invoices, the API accepts JSON templates describing rows and blocks, which it then transforms into accessible PDF/A-3a files. All three methods produce PDFs that adhere to accessibility standards.

In addition to document generation, PDF/UA API provides a validation feature. Users can submit any PDF to an endpoint to check for compliance with PDF/A-3a and PDF/UA-1 standards or to verify that a document was generated by this API. This helps maintain document accessibility and standard conformity throughout a workflow.

Deployment is streamlined as the API is distributed as a single container, requiring no databases, headless browsers, or external services. This makes it straightforward to run locally or in a self-hosted environment, supporting integration into existing infrastructure with minimal setup. The API returns generated PDFs directly as application/pdf, or optionally as a base64-encoded PDF within a JSON response, depending on the request headers.