Ensure your signed documents remain readable, accessible, and compliant decades into the future.
PDF/A is a specialized format developed for long-term document preservation. It restricts features like encryption, external fonts, and unsupported multimedia to keep files self-contained and accessible over time.
Using PDF/A helps meet regulatory requirements, protects document integrity, and avoids future file format issues. Acrobat Sign enforces PDF/A compliance throughout the agreement workflow—from upload to signature to storage.
PDF/A workflows are especially useful for organizations with long-term archiving needs, such as those in finance, healthcare, and government.
Benefits of using PDF/A workflows
- Meet compliance and retention regulations
- Maintain readable, stable document formatting
- Avoid costs from reformatting or migrating archived files
- Increase confidence in the integrity of signed records
This option to maintain and validate PDF/A-2B and PDF/A-3B files requires the sender to upload a PDF/A-2B file. Other file formats are currently not supported in combination with this feature.
The scope of applicable formats is expected to increase in subsequent releases.
Configuration
Availability:
- Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Pro: Not Configurable
- Acrobat Sign Solutions: Supported
- Acrobat Sign for Government: Supported
Configuration scope:
Administrators can enable this feature at the account and group levels.
Access this feature by navigating the administrator's configuration menu to Global Settings > PDF/A Workflows
The following settings are available:
Enabling this setting requires all uploaded documents to be PDF/A-2b compliant. This includes the initial source documents, attached library documents, and attachments added by the sender or signers (through the File Attachments field).
- PDFs that are not compliant with the PDF/A standard are rejected.
- All other file formats that are not PDF are rejected.
Enabling this feature absolutely limits all uploaded files to be in the PDF format.
The option to Upload Signed Documents is not compatible with the PDF/A functionality.
Attempting to enable the PDF/A feature with Upload Signed Documents enaabled will prompt an error:
The Signed Document Password Protection admin controls are altered to suppress any option that allows a sealing password to be applied:
Both the Request Signatures and Workflow Designer interfaces removes the option to add a password at the user level:
Acrobat Sign does not support editing or digitally signing PDF/A documents.
Enabling PDF/A Workflows automatically disables the Download and Sign with Acrobat option for digital signature workflows. Agreements must be signed using cloud-based signatures.
Acrobat Sign does not support editing or digitally signing PDF/A documents.
Enabling PDF/A Workflows automatically disables the Download and Sign with Acrobat option for digital signature workflows. Agreements must be signed using cloud-based signatures.
How it's used
When enabled, the PDF/A workflow includes validation steps to ensure full compliance:
- Word document conversion is supported.
- PDF documents are validated against the PDF/A-2b standard.
- Files that meet PDF/A requirements are accepted and preserved throughout the signing process.
- If a document fails validation, the agreement is blocked and an error message is shown:
- {File Name}: File does not conform to the PDF/A specification - Indicates that the uploaded file does not meet PDF/A-2b requirements.
- {File Name}: File cannot be uploaded - Indicates that password protection or encryption is blocking the upload of the file.
The signed document and its audit report include a compliance marker that identifies PDF/A status.
API behavior
When PDF/A workflows are enabled, related APIs enforce the same restrictions:
- Hyperlink fields of type EXTERNAL return an INVALID_HYPERLINK_TYPE error.
- Password-protected security options return a PDFA_PASSWORD_PROTECTED_NOT_ALLOWED error.
- API requests involving non-PDF/A files are rejected unless the Ignore PDF/A Errors setting is enabled.
Things to know
PDF/A compliance imposes restrictions on certain Acrobat Sign features:
- Password protection is disabled for PDF/A agreements.
- The option to add Signed Document Password Protection to an agreement (through the agreement settings or Workflow Designer) is suppressed to prevent applying a password.
- The controls in the admin menu to require a signed document password is altered to remove all options that allow passwords.
- External hyperlinks are not allowed. Hyperlink fields are limited to page-based links within the document.
- When authoring fields onto the agreement, the hyperlink field type removes the option to include an external hyperlink.
- Encryption is disabled, even if encryption does not require a password to decrypt the document. Signed PDF/A documents are not encrypted after download.
- Non-compliant attachments are rejected. Uploaded attachments must also be PDF/A-2b compliant, including uploads from recipients.
Supported fonts
Adobe Acrobat Sign supports these font categories for PDF/A:
- Microsoft Office Fonts - The fonts typically included with a standard Microsoft Office installation are supported.
Additional Supported Fonts
- Adobe Arabic
- Adobe Caslon Pro
- Adobe Clean
- Adobe Devanagari
- Adobe Fan Heiti Standard
- Adobe Fangsong Standard
- Adobe Garamond Pro
- Adobe Gothic Standard
- Adobe Hebrew
- Adobe Heiti Standard
- Adobe Jenson Pro
- Adobe Kaiti Standard
- Adobe Ming Standard
- Adobe Myungjo Standard
- Adobe Pi Standard
- Adobe Song Standard
- Adobe Text Pro
- Adobe Thai
- Alexa Standard
- Arno Pro
- Balzano Standard
- Banshee Standard
- Bell Centennial Standard
- Bickham Script Pro
- Birch Standard
- Blackoak Standard
- Brioso Pro
- Brush Script Standard
- Caflisch Script Pro
- Caliban Standard
- Century Old Style Standard
- Chaparral Pro
- Charlemagne Standard
- Cooper Black Standard
- Copal Standard
- Coriander Standard
- Cottonwood Standard
- Courier Standard
- Cronos Pro
- Cutout Standard
- Flood Standard
- Fusaka Standard
- Garamond Premier Pro
- Giddyup Standard
- Graphite Standard
- Heisei Kaku Go Standard
- Heisei Maru Go Standard
- Heisei Min Standard
- Hobo Standard
- Hypatia Sans Pro
- Immi Five O Five Standard
- Ironwood Standard
- Juniper Standard
- Kazuraki SP2N
- Kazuraki SPN
- Kepler Standard
- Kozuka Gothic Pr6N
- Kozuka Gothic Pro
- Kozuka Gothic Pro VI
- Kozuka Gothic Standard
- Kozuka Mincho Pr6N
- Kozuka Mincho Pro
- Kozuka Mincho Pro VI
- Kozuka Mincho Standard
- Letter Gothic Standard
- Lithos Pro
- Madrone Standard
- Mesquite Standard
- MICR Standard
- Minion Pro
- Myriad Arabic
- Myriad Hebrew
- Myriad Pro
- Myriad Standard
- Mythos Standard
- News Gothic Standard
- Nueva Standard
- OCRA Standard
- OCRB Standard
- Orator Standard
- Ouch Standard
- Pepperwood Standard
- Poetica Standard
- Ponderosa Standard
- Poplar Standard
- Postino Standard
- Prestige Elite Standard
- Quake Standard
- Rad Standard
- Rosewood Standard
- Ryo Clean Plus N
- Ryo Display Plus N
- Ryo Display Standard
- Ryo Gothic Plus N
- Ryo Gothic Standard
- Ryo Text Plus N
- Ryo Text Standard
- Sanvito Pro
- Shuriken Standard
- Stencil Standard
- Strumpf Standard
- Symbol Standard
- Tekton Pro
- Toolbox Standard
- Trajan Pro
- Utopia Standard
- Viva Standard
- Voluta Script Pro
- Warnock Pro
- Willow Standard
- Woodtype Ornaments Standard
- Zebrawood Standard
Japanese Fonts
- BIZ UDMingcho
- BIZ UDPGothic
- HG S Kyokasho
- HG S Mincho
- Hiragino Kyokasho
- Hiragino Maru Gothic
- Hiragino Mincho
- Hiragino Reisho
- Hiragino Seikaishotai
- Hiragino Soei Kakupoptai
- Meiryo
- MS Mincho
- OCR B
- UD Digi Kyokasho N
- Yu Mincho
