a11yfy – PDF Accessibility Checker & Fixer

Is your site ready for the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and the ADA? Most PDF documents on the web are not accessible: screen readers cannot read them in a meaningful order, images have no descriptions, forms have no labels. The requirements are similar on both sides of the Atlantic — the EAA in the EU, the ADA and Section 508 in the United States — and PDFs are the most commonly overlooked part.

See the plugin in action (58 seconds):

The a11yfy plugin gives you two things:

1. Free accessibility scan — 100% local. The analysis engine runs in your browser (pdf.js + pdf-lib): it verifies your PDFs against 42 machine-verifiable checkpoints of the Matterhorn Protocol (PDF/UA-1) — tag structure, document metadata, heading hierarchy, alternative texts, language settings, annotation nesting and more. Your files never leave your site. The result is a risk rating and a concrete list of problems for every PDF in your Media Library.

2. One-click remediation (optional, paid). Connect your a11yfy account and the plugin sends the selected PDFs to the a11yfy service, which produces a tagged, PDF/UA-oriented accessible version — processed in the EU. The fixed file replaces the original at the same URL (the original is kept as a backup with one-click restore), or, in conservative mode, is served alongside it.

The free scan is a genuine standalone tool — no account, no API calls, no telemetry. The paid service is only involved when you explicitly send a document for remediation.

Why a11yfy?

• Files are processed in the EU, on EU infrastructure — GDPR-friendly by design.
• Works on scanned (image-only) PDFs too: OCR plus a full structural rebuild.
• The original file is always kept — one-click restore, tamper detection, free re-apply.
• Every remediated PDF comes with a verifiable certificate — downloadable from the document page or the Media Library, with a public verification link you can share.
• Fully translation-ready — translations are delivered via translate.wordpress.org as they become available.

Important: the free scan is a technical pre-check against the machine-verifiable PDF/UA-1 checkpoints. It cannot (and does not claim to) certify full PDF/UA-1, EAA or ADA compliance — that also requires human checks and font-level validation, which the a11yfy service performs during remediation.

External Services

This plugin connects to the a11yfy API (https://a11yfy.com) — but only when you connect an API key and request remediation or balance information. The free scan never contacts any external service.

What is sent and when:

• When you remediate a PDF (manually, via bulk action, or through the automatic mode you enabled): the PDF file itself, its file name, and your API key are sent to https://a11yfy.com/v1/jobs. Processing happens in the EU.
• Balance / job status checks: your API key is sent with each request; no document content.

The plugin never sends analytics, usage statistics, or any data about your site visitors. Data processing terms: https://a11yfy.com/privacy — Terms of service: https://a11yfy.com/terms

Source Code

The bundled analysis engine is built from human-readable source with esbuild. Unminified source: the js/ directory of the public plugin repository at https://github.com/a11yfy/wp-plugin — the bundled libraries are pdf.js (Apache-2.0, https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js), pdf-lib (MIT, https://github.com/Hopding/pdf-lib), smalot/pdfparser (LGPL-3.0, https://github.com/smalot/pdfparser), Action Scheduler (GPL-3.0, https://github.com/woocommerce/action-scheduler).