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.

Three working modes: automatic (every new upload is fixed), manual (you pick what to fix), and on demand — visitors who click a not-yet-accessible PDF can request an accessible version in an accessible dialog and get an email when it is ready, so you only pay for documents people actually need.

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, through the automatic mode you enabled, or when a visitor requests an accessible version in the on-demand 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. A requester’s email address is stored only on your site and is never sent to the a11yfy API.
• 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).