Check PDF Standards

User Guide — Mapsoft Check PDF Standards Plugin for Adobe Acrobat

Overview

Check PDF Standards is an Adobe Acrobat plugin that detects which PDF standards a document conforms to, by reading the document's XMP metadata. It can process a single file, a folder of files, or the currently open PDF in Acrobat, and can report results in an alert dialog or export them to a CSV file for record-keeping.

Standards detected include PDF/A (with conformance level), PDF/UA, PDF/X, PDF/VT, PDF/E, and PDF/VCR.

The plugin reads the XMP metadata embedded in the PDF. A document must declare its standards conformance in its metadata for the plugin to detect it — it does not independently validate the document content against each standard's rules.

Getting Started

After installation, the plugin adds a Check PDF Standards… menu item under Extensions › Mapsoft in Adobe Acrobat. Click this to open the dialog.

Select your input source — a single file, folder, or the current PDF.
Choose your output method — alert dialog or CSV export.
Click Run.

Input Modes

Three radio buttons control which PDF(s) are checked:

Current PDF

Checks the document that is currently open and active in Acrobat. This option is automatically selected and enabled when Acrobat has an open document. If no document is open, this option is disabled.

File

Check a single PDF file on disk. Click Browse… to select the file, or type the path directly into the field. Use this when you want to inspect one specific document.

Folder

Check all PDF files in a folder. Click Browse… to select the folder. Enable Include subfolders to process PDF files in nested directories recursively.

When processing a folder, a progress dialog shows the current file count and filename. Processing continues until all files are checked, and results are written to the CSV output file you specify.

Tip: For large folder batches, use the CSV output mode — the alert dialog is only available for single-file or current-PDF checks.

Output Modes

Show in Alert

Displays the result in a message box immediately after processing. Shows the detected standard(s) for the checked file. This option is most useful when checking a single file or the current PDF.

Export to CSV

Saves the results to a CSV (comma-separated values) file. When you click Run, a Save dialog lets you choose the output file location. Check Open in Excel to have the CSV file opened automatically in Microsoft Excel after export.

CSV output is the recommended mode for folder processing, as it produces a permanent record of all files checked.

Standards Detected

The plugin searches the document's XMP metadata for the following namespace prefixes:

Standard	What it covers	Example result
PDF/A	Long-term archival. Parts 1–4 with conformance levels a (accessible), b (basic), and u (Unicode).	`PDF/A-2b`, `PDF/A-3a`
PDF/UA	Universal accessibility for users with disabilities.	`PDF/UA`
PDF/X	Print production and prepress exchange.	`PDF/X`
PDF/VT	Variable and transactional printing.	`PDF/VT`
PDF/E	Engineering and technical documents.	`PDF/E`
PDF/VCR	Variable content and rendering.	`PDF/VCR`

A document may conform to more than one standard. In that case all detected standards are listed, separated by semicolons — for example: PDF/A-2b; PDF/UA.

If no recognized standard namespace is found in the metadata, the result is empty (the document either has no standard declaration or uses a format not covered above).

CSV Output Format

Each row in the exported CSV represents one PDF file. The columns are:

Column	Description
`File Path`	Full path to the PDF file on disk.
`Standard`	Detected PDF standard(s), semicolon-separated, or blank if none.
`Page Count`	Total number of pages in the document.
`File Size (KB)`	File size in kilobytes.
`Creation Date`	The document's creation date as stored in its metadata.

The CSV has no header row. Files that fail to open (e.g. password-protected PDFs) are skipped silently.

System Requirements

Adobe Acrobat: Acrobat Pro or Standard DC (2017 or later). Not compatible with Acrobat Reader.
Operating System: Windows 10 or Windows 11 (32-bit and 64-bit Acrobat installations both supported).
Optional: Microsoft Excel for the “Open in Excel” feature.

Support

If you encounter a problem or have a question not covered here, please get in touch: