Ceereo

PDF accessibility

Free PDF Accessibility Checker

Upload a PDF and get an itemized audit against PDF/UA and WCAG automated checks — every issue named, explained, and mapped to the standard it breaks.

Ceereo checks the things assistive technology actually depends on: is the document tagged at all, does it declare a language and title, do figures carry alt text, are fonts embedded, does the text extract as real characters, are there image-only pages a screen reader can't touch. Each finding comes back in plain English with a severity and the standard it maps to (PDF/UA, WCAG, Section 508), plus a 0–100 score. The audit is free and needs no signup — and unlike checker-only tools, the fix is one click away on the same page: a remediated, tagged PDF that is pixel-identical to your original.

Pixel-identical output Minutes per document Try without signing up

Last updated: August 6, 2026 · Reviewed by the Ceereo team

Free audit, no signup — your full report opens on the next page.

How it works

From upload to accessible PDF in four steps

The fastest way from an inaccessible PDF to a tagged, verified one — no tag panel, no service queue, no visual changes.

  1. Step 1

    Upload your PDF

    Drop in the PDF you need to make accessible. Your file is processed only to audit and remediate it, and is never used to train models.

  2. Step 2

    The document is audited

    Every PDF/UA and WCAG machine check runs: tags, reading order, language, title, alt text, font embedding and text integrity.

  3. Step 3

    The structure is written in

    Headings, paragraphs, lists, tables and figures are tagged in reading order, with headers and footers marked as artifacts to be skipped.

  4. Step 4

    Download the accessible PDF

    Get your own file back with a full tag structure, re-audited and pixel-compared so you can prove nothing visible changed.

In short

A PDF accessibility checker verifies the machine-checkable requirements of PDF/UA and WCAG: tag structure, reading order scaffolding, language, title, alt text, and font embedding. Ceereo runs the audit free in seconds and — unlike checker-only tools — can then produce the fixed, tagged PDF itself, visually unchanged.

How do I check if a PDF is accessible?

Run it through an automated checker that verifies the PDF/UA machine checks: whether the document is tagged, declares a language and title, has alt text on figures, embeds its fonts, and contains real extractable text. Ceereo does this free — upload the PDF and read the itemized findings. Automated checks catch the majority of failures; a passing result means the file passes machine verification (human review is still the gold standard for reading-order judgment).

Checker + fixer

The audit is the diagnosis — the cure is on the same page

Most free checkers stop at the bad news, because they're lead magnets for enterprise software or $3–10/page human services. Here the same engine that audits your PDF can rewrite it: tags threaded into the original file, metadata repaired, and a pixel-diff proving nothing visible changed.

  • Free itemized audit — every finding mapped to PDF/UA, WCAG, or 508
  • One-click remediation from the same report
  • Pixel-verified: the fixed file looks exactly like the original
  • Honest scope: born-digital PDFs (scans need OCR — not supported yet)

Features

Why teams choose Ceereo

Plain-English findings

Not error codes — each issue explains what breaks, who it locks out, and which standard requires it.

Severity + score

Critical/major/minor triage and a 0–100 score so you know how far from passing you are.

The fix built in

The same engine produces the remediated, tagged PDF — no hand-off to a $3-per-page service.

Use cases

Where Ceereo works best

Pre-publication check

Audit reports and public documents before they go on your website.

Compliance evidence

Keep the machine-check report alongside published PDFs.

Vendor QA

Verify the 'accessible' PDF your agency delivered actually passes.

Why not do it by hand?

Ceereo vs. doing it manually

Remediating a PDF by hand in Acrobat's tag panel takes days and rarely verifies clean the first time. Here's the difference.

Approach
By hand / service
Ceereo
Time to remediate
Days of tag-panel work or a service queue
Minutes per document
Tags & reading order
Hand-built in Acrobat's tag panel
Rebuilt automatically
Verification
Run a checker yourself, interpret it
Re-audit + pixel-diff, automatic
Your document's look
At risk during editing
Never changed — pixel-verified
Cost shape
$3–10 per page (services)
Flat per document

Output quality

What the remediated PDF looks like

Every run produces a tagged, machine-verified PDF that is pixel-identical to your original. Here's what you get.

  • Checks mapped to PDF/UA (Matterhorn), WCAG, and Section 508
  • Per-page issue locations where applicable
  • Machine-pass verdict with an honest disclaimer (not legal certification)
  • Same-engine remediation available immediately

Frequently asked questions

Is the checker really free?+

The audit is free and requires no account. Remediation — producing the fixed file — is the paid product.

Does a passing result mean I'm legally compliant?+

It means the file passes automated PDF/UA machine checks — the same class of checks tools like PAC run. Legal compliance also involves human-judgment criteria; the report says exactly this, honestly.

What about scanned PDFs?+

Scans have no real text and need OCR reconstruction — a different job we don't do yet. The checker detects them and tells you.

Check your PDF now

Free itemized audit in seconds — fix it in one click if it fails.