07.11.2026

Word, Excel and PowerPoint to PDF/A by API - for archives and e-filing

Convert DOCX, XLSX and PPTX (Cyrillic included) to PDF/A-2b in bulk with one API call - a real run, what I checked in the output, the price and the limits.

Archives, document management systems and some e-filing portals accept only PDF/A: a PDF with every font embedded and nothing that depends on the viewer's computer. Saving as PDF/A by hand works for one file. For a folder of contracts, tables and slides you want it done by an API. Every output below is from a real run on 7 November 2026.

Disclosure: I built the tool used here, Office to PDF Converter on Apify. It runs LibreOffice in a container. The source code is open: AndriyVK/-apify-document-tools.

One call, several files

pip install apify-client

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("ai_admin/office-to-pdf").call(run_input={
    "sources": [
        {"url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/FloomuI2DrQCJazY8/records/doc-uk.docx"},
        {"url": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/FloomuI2DrQCJazY8/records/sheet-uk.xlsx"},
    ],
    "pdfA": True,          # PDF/A-2b instead of a plain PDF
    "mergeIntoOne": True,  # also one merged.pdf in input order (free)
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item.get("fileName", "merged"), item["pages"], "pages", item["pdfUrl"])

The two sample files are public, so the code runs as is. Formats: DOCX, DOC, ODT, RTF, TXT, HTML, XLSX, XLS, ODS, CSV, PPTX, PPT, ODP and images.

The real output

doc-uk.docx    1 page   44,040 bytes  pdfA: true
sheet-uk.xlsx  2 pages  32,574 bytes  pdfA: true
merged.pdf     3 pages  34,927 bytes  documents: 2

What I checked in the PDF

A file that says «PDF/A» is not always one, so I opened the Word result:

The PDF/A label is there: the XMP metadata says pdfaid:part 2, pdfaid:conformance B - PDF/A-2b.
All fonts are embedded (pdffonts: emb yes for every font). This is what PDF/A is about: the file looks the same on any computer, in ten years too.
The Cyrillic text is real text, not a picture: pdftotext gives back «Звіт про постачання», «Склад у Львові отримав 1240 палет…» - so the archive's search finds it.
Fonts were replaced. The document asks for Calibri and Cambria, which are Microsoft fonts. The converter uses Carlito and Caladea instead - free fonts with the same letter widths, so lines and pages break in the same places. The look is close but not identical.

What I did not do: a full validation with veraPDF, the reference PDF/A checker. If a portal rejects files that fail veraPDF, run it on a sample before you convert the whole folder.

Price

$10 per 1,000 documents, whatever the number of pages; merging is free; a file that fails to convert is not charged. The run above cost two cents.

Limits

Password-protected files are not converted.
Fonts that are not installed are replaced by metric-compatible ones; an unusual font may change the look slightly.
Macros are not run.
PDF/A is about how a file is stored. It does not sign it: if a court or an agency needs a qualified electronic signature, sign the PDF/A afterwards with your own signing tool.

From an AI agent

The converter is also an MCP tool: https://mcp.apify.com?tools=ai_admin/office-to-pdf, so Claude, Cursor or any MCP client can turn the files it has prepared into PDF/A.