--- title: "Validate PDF conformance | Nutrient .NET SDK" canonical_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/dotnet/conversion/validate-pdf-conformance/" md_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/dotnet/conversion/validate-pdf-conformance.md" last_updated: "2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z" description: "How to validate PDF/A and PDF/UA conformance using Nutrient .NET SDK." --- # Validate PDF conformance PDF conformance validation verifies that a document actually complies with the archival (PDF/A) or accessibility (PDF/UA) standard it claims. A document that carries a PDF/A or PDF/UA identifier in its metadata isn’t guaranteed to satisfy the standard — files produced by external tools, edited after conversion, or assembled from mixed sources often violate the requirements they declare. Use this workflow when you need to: - Verify documents before accepting them into long-term storage - Audit existing document repositories against declared standards - Confirm the output of a PDF/A or PDF/UA conversion pipeline - Test documents against PDF/UA before publication ## Prepare the project Register the SDK license before running validation operations. For setup details, refer to the [getting started with.NET SDK](https://www.nutrient.io/sdk/dotnet/getting-started.md) guide. ```csharp using GdPicture14; LicenseManager licence = new LicenseManager(); licence.RegisterKEY(""); // Set your license key ``` ## Load the PDF document Create a `GdPicturePDF` instance and load the source file: ```csharp using GdPicturePDF pdf = new GdPicturePDF(); pdf.LoadFromFile(@"input_pdfa_valid.pdf"); ``` ## Detect the claimed conformance Read the conformance level the document claims in its metadata: ```csharp PdfConformance claimedConformance = pdf.GetPDFConformance(); Console.WriteLine($"Claimed conformance: {claimedConformance}"); ``` `GetPDFConformance` reports PDF/A and PDF/UA conformance claims. For documents without a claim, it reports the PDF version instead. ## Validate the claimed PDF/A conformance Validate the document against the PDF/A conformance level it claims, and write the detailed report to a file: ```csharp string report = string.Empty; bool isValid = pdf.IsValidPDFA(ref report); Console.WriteLine($"PDF/A validation result: {isValid}"); File.WriteAllText(@"report.xml", report); ``` `IsValidPDFA` returns `true` when the document complies with the standard it claims. The report is a machine-readable XML document. When the file doesn’t comply, the report lists every problem found during validation. To validate a claimed PDF/UA conformance instead, use the `IsValidPDFUA` method in the same way. ## Validate against a specific conformance level To check a document against a standard it doesn’t claim — for example, to test whether an archival document is also accessible — request the target conformance level explicitly: ```csharp string uaReport = string.Empty; bool isUaConformant = pdf.CheckPDFUAConformance(PdfValidationConformance.PDF_UA_1, ref uaReport); Console.WriteLine($"PDF/UA-1 validation result: {isUaConformant}"); pdf.CloseDocument(); ``` The sample document is a valid PDF/A file, so the PDF/UA-1 check reports it as not conformant — the accessibility standard imposes tagging and structure requirements that archival conformance doesn’t. To validate against a specific PDF/A level, use the `CheckPDFAConformance` method with the same signature. ## Supported conformance levels The `PdfValidationConformance` enumeration covers all supported validation targets: - PDF/A-1a, PDF/A-1b - PDF/A-2a, PDF/A-2u, PDF/A-2b - PDF/A-3a, PDF/A-3u, PDF/A-3b - PDF/A-4, PDF/A-4e, PDF/A-4f - PDF/UA-1 ## Handle errors In production, validate: - Input file availability and format - Operation status after loading and validation, using the `GetStat` method - Encryption state — validation requires an unencrypted document For status-handling patterns, refer to the [handling errors with.NET SDK](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/dotnet/best-practices.md#error-handling) guide. ## Conclusion This guide verifies that a PDF document genuinely complies with the archival or accessibility standard it claims. To produce compliant documents from regular PDF files, refer to the [PDF-to-PDF/A](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-pdfa.md) and [PDF-to-PDF/UA](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-pdf-ua.md) guides. --- ## Related pages - [Convert files to PDF in C# .NET](/guides/dotnet/conversion.md) - [Convert to MS Office from any file in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/any-file-to-office.md) - [Convert any image to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/any-image-to-pdf.md) - [Convert bitmap (BMP) to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/bmp-to-pdf.md) - [Convert DWG or DXF to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/cad-to-pdf.md) - [Convert emails (MSG/EML) to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/email-to-pdf.md) - [Embed a font in a Word document](/guides/dotnet/conversion/embed-font-in-word-document.md) - [Convert Excel to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/excel-to-pdf.md) - [HTML to PDF file logging diagnostics](/guides/dotnet/conversion/html-to-pdf-file-logging-diagnostics.md) - [HTML to PDF logging diagnostics](/guides/dotnet/conversion/html-to-pdf-logging-diagnostics.md) - [Convert HTML to PDF using C# and .NET](/guides/dotnet/conversion/html-to-pdf.md) - [Convert HTML to Word in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/html-to-word.md) - [Convert images to PDFs in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/image-to-pdf.md) - [Convert JPG to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/jpg-to-pdf.md) - [Converting a document from Markdown to PDF format](/guides/dotnet/conversion/markdown-to-pdf.md) - [Merge and combine multiple files into a PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/merge-to-pdf.md) - [Convert MS Office files to PDFs in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/office-to-pdf.md) - [Convert PDF to bitmap (BMP) in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-bmp.md) - [Convert PDF to Excel in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-excel.md) - [Converting PDF to HTML](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-html.md) - [Convert images to PDFs in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-image.md) - [Convert PDF to JPG in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-jpg.md) - [Converting a document from PDF to Markdown format](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-markdown.md) - [Convert PDF to other images in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-other-image.md) - [Convert PDF to PDF/UA](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-pdf-ua.md) - [Convert PDF to PDF/A](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-pdfa.md) - [Convert PDF to PNG in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-png.md) - [Convert PDF to PowerPoint in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-powerpoint.md) - [Convert PDF to SVG in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-svg.md) - [Convert PDF to TIFF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-tiff.md) - [Convert PDF to Word in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/pdf-to-word.md) - [Convert PNG to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/png-to-pdf.md) - [Convert PowerPoint to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/powerpoint-to-pdf.md) - [Convert RTF to Word in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/rtf-to-docx.md) - [Convert RTF to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/rtf-to-pdf.md) - [Convert SVG to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/svg-to-pdf.md) - [Convert text to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/text-to-pdf.md) - [Convert TIFF to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/tiff-to-pdf.md) - [Convert to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/to-office.md) - [Converting Word documents with comments to PDF](/guides/dotnet/conversion/word-document-to-pdf-including-comments.md) - [Converting Word documents to PDF/UA](/guides/dotnet/conversion/word-document-to-pdf-ua.md) - [Convert Word to PDF in C#](/guides/dotnet/conversion/word-to-pdf.md)