Java - Convert PDF to PDF/A or PDF/A to PDF

PDF/A (Portable Document Format Archivable) is an archival file format. It can preserve the details of a document and reproduce it in exactly the same way regardless of how long the document has been stored. Sometimes, you may need to convert PDF to PDF/A for long-term document archiving purposes. In this article, I will demonstrate how to convert PDF to PDF/A or PDF/A to PDF using Java.

• Convert PDF to PDF/A
• Convert PDF/A to PDF

Add Dependencies

In order to perform the conversions between PDF and PDF/A, this article uses Spire.PDF for Java library. Before coding, you need to include the Jar file of the library in your Java project as a dependency.

Method 1: If you are using maven, you can easily import the JAR file in your application by adding the following code to your project's pom.xml file.

<repositories>
    <repository>
        <id>com.e-iceblue</id>
        <name>e-iceblue</name>
        <url>https://repo.e-iceblue.com/nexus/content/groups/public/</url>
    </repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>e-iceblue</groupId>
        <artifactId>spire.pdf</artifactId>
        <version>8.11.8</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Method 2: If you are not using maven, you can download the JAR file from the official website, extract the zip file and then import the Spire.Pdf.jar file under the lib folder into your project as a dependency.

Convert PDF to PDF/A Using Java

Spire.PDF for Java supports converting PDF to various PDF/A formats, including:

• PDF/A-1a
• PDF/A-1b
• PDF/A-2a
• PDF/A-2b
• PDF/A-3a
• PDF/A-3b

The following steps demonstrate how to convert a PDF document to the above listed PDF/A formats:

• Initialize an instance of the PdfStandardsConverter class, and pass the file path of the PDF document to the class constructor as a parameter.
• Convert the document to Pdf/A-1a using PdfStandardsConverter.toPdfA1A() method.
• Convert the document to Pdf/A-1b using PdfStandardsConverter. toPdfA1B() method.
• Convert the document to Pdf/A-2a using PdfStandardsConverter. toPdfA2A() method.
• Convert the document to Pdf/A-2b using PdfStandardsConverter. toPdfA2B() method.
• Convert the document to Pdf/A-3a using PdfStandardsConverter. toPdfA3A() method.
• Convert the document to Pdf/A-3b using PdfStandardsConverter. toPdfA3B() method.

import com.spire.pdf.conversion.PdfStandardsConverter;

public class ConvertPdfToPdfA {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //Initialize an instance of the PdfStandardsConverter class and pass the PDF file path to the class constructor as a parameter
        PdfStandardsConverter converter = new PdfStandardsConverter("Input.pdf");

        //Convert the PDF document to PdfA1A
        converter.toPdfA1A("output/ToPdfA1A.pdf");

        //Convert the PDF document to PdfA1B
        converter.toPdfA1B("output/ToPdfA1B.pdf");

        //Convert the PDF document to PdfA2A
        converter.toPdfA2A( "output/ToPdfA2A.pdf");

        //Convert the PDF document to PdfA2B
        converter.toPdfA2B("output/ToPdfA2B.pdf");

        //Convert the PDF document to PdfA3A
        converter.toPdfA3A("output/ToPdfA3A.pdf");

        //Convert the PDF document to PdfA3B
        converter.toPdfA3B("output/ToPdfA3B.pdf");
    }
}

The converted PDF/A-1a document:

Convert PDF/A to PDF Using Java

Compared with PDF, PDF/A prohibits some features that are unsuitable for long-term archiving, including JavaScript, audio and video content, encryption, etc. Therefore, you may sometimes need to convert a PDF/A document to a normal PDF document to perform some of the restricted features.

The following steps demonstrate how to convert a PDF/A document to a normal PDF document:

• Initialize an instance of the PdfDocument class.
• Load the PDF/A document using PdfDocument.loadFromFile() method.
• Initialize an instance of the PdfNewDocument class to create a new PDF file.
• Set the conformance level of the new PDF document as PdfCompressionLevel.None using PdfNewDocument.setCompressionLevel() method.
• Iterate through all pages in the PDF/A document.
• Add pages of the same page size to the newly created PDF document using PdfNewDocument.getPages().add() method.
• Create templates from the pages of the PDF/A document, and draw the templates onto the pages of the new PDF document using PdfPageBase.createTemplate().draw() method.
• Save the result document using PdfDocument.save() method.

import com.spire.pdf.PdfCompressionLevel;
import com.spire.pdf.PdfDocument;
import com.spire.pdf.PdfNewDocument;
import com.spire.pdf.PdfPageBase;
import com.spire.pdf.graphics.PdfMargins;

import java.awt.geom.Dimension2D;

public class ConvertPdfAToPdf {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //Initialize an instance of the PdfDocument class
        PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument();
        //Load the PDF/A document
        doc.loadFromFile("output/ToPdfA1A.pdf");

        //Initialize an instance of PdfNewDocument
        PdfNewDocument newDoc = new PdfNewDocument();
        //Set the conformance level of the new PDF document as none
        newDoc.setCompressionLevel(PdfCompressionLevel.None);

        //Loop through all pages in the PDF/A document
        for (PdfPageBase page : (Iterable<PdfPageBase>)doc.getPages())
        {
            Dimension2D size = page.getSize();
            //Add pages to the new PDF document
            PdfPageBase p = newDoc.getPages().add(size, new PdfMargins(0));
            //Create templates from the pages in the PDF/A document and draw them onto the pages in the new PDF document
            page.createTemplate().draw(p, 0, 0);
        }

        //Save the result document
        newDoc.save("NormalPdf.pdf");
    }
}

The converted normal PDF document: