Public beta
PDF remediation that stays on your Mac.
DocAccessible for Mac is a native app for tagging, repairing and validating PDFs yourself. Your documents never leave the machine, your original is never changed, and a person makes the final call.
What you can do in the app
Tags and reading order
Propose tags for an untagged PDF, review each one, then correct roles and order against the page. Repeated headers and footers are proposed as artifacts for you to confirm.
Tables
Set header cells, scope, spans and header associations in a grid, add an optional table summary, and join tables that continue across pages.
Forms and links
Add text fields, checkboxes, dropdowns, lists and radio groups with accessible labels, and label existing fields and links.
Navigation and pages
Edit bookmarks, page labels and tab order. Rotate pages, and on untagged files without form fields, remove, reorder or extract them into a new project.
Text and scans
Recognize scanned pages with Apple Vision on your Mac, confirm each line, and create a searchable copy to tag. Supported fonts can have their Unicode mappings repaired, and a missing Arial, Helvetica, Times or Courier can be replaced by a bundled font with the same widths.
Contrast and images
Check rendered text contrast, propose color fixes and recheck the output. Write alternative text for figures, with a person deciding what each one should say.
Validation
Run the bundled veraPDF checker against PDF/UA-1 or PDF/UA-2 on a separate output file, so your original keeps its exact bytes.
Review and reports
Record decisions in a 64-item human review covering WCAG 2.2 A and AA, PDF integrity and reader testing, then export reports and draft a statement.
What the beta does not do
Worth knowing before you install it, not after.
- It does not make a PDF conformant by itself. Machine checks cover part of PDF/UA and WCAG, and a person has to review the meaning.
- It refuses signed PDFs, encrypted PDFs, dynamic XFA forms and damaged files rather than risk changing them silently.
- Automatic tag proposals refuse PDFs with layers or with comment and markup annotations. Flatten or remove those in the source first.
- Removing or reordering pages is not available once a file is tagged or has form fields. Rotation still is.
- Fonts the source file left out can be replaced only by a bundled font with the same widths (Liberation Sans, Serif or Mono). Other missing fonts still need a new export from the source.
- It runs on Apple silicon Macs with macOS 15 or later. There is no Windows version, so JAWS and NVDA testing needs another machine.
Guides for working on a Mac
- How to tag a PDF on a Mac
What Preview can and cannot do, and the steps from an untagged file to a reviewed one.
- Remediate confidential PDFs without uploading them
When a local tool is the right call, and what to check about any tool that says it is local.
- Validate PDF/UA on a Mac
Reading veraPDF results, what they prove, and what still needs a person.
Questions
- Does DocAccessible for Mac upload my PDFs?
- No. Tagging, repair, OCR and validation run on your Mac, in a document process with no network access. The separate account service contacts DocAccessible only for activation and renewal, and it does not receive document content.
- Is it free?
- The app is a free download, and activating it needs a paid DocAccessible plan. Free accounts and unpaid trials do not activate it. The free browser tools remain available without an account.
- Which Macs does the beta support?
- Apple silicon Macs running macOS 15 or later. The app is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, and it is downloaded from docaccessible.com rather than the Mac App Store.
- What does beta mean here?
- The app is available for real work, but it has not yet been qualified across a large set of real documents or with every screen reader. Check its results against your own review before you rely on them, and expect some PDFs to be refused.
- Will the output pass PDF/UA or WCAG automatically?
- Not automatically. veraPDF reports machine-checkable PDF/UA failures, and many documents still need alternative text and human decisions first. Passing a validator also does not show that a document reads correctly, so the app keeps machine results and human review separate.
- How is this different from the hosted DocAccessible workspace?
- The hosted workspace handles discovery across websites, HTML publishing and team routing. The Mac app is for a person remediating PDF files directly, on one machine, without sending the document anywhere.