How is the PDF score calculated?
The PDF rating is a quality indicator that evaluates a PDF file based on identified accessibility issues. It helps you quickly understand how well your document meets the UA & WCAG guidelines.
Starting point of the PDF score
Each PDF file begins with a rating of 100%.
This corresponds to a document with no identified issues.
How the rating is reduced
For each issue identified within the PDF, the rating is reduced accordingly.
The number of points deducted depends on the severity (weighting) of the issue. Issues are categorised according to their level of impact, which determines how strongly they affect the rating per error:
- Critical error (highest impact): 60 points
- Error: 10–30 points deducted
- Warning: 2 points
- Notice (lowest impact): -1 point
Issues with higher severity result in a greater reduction in the overall rating.
You can find more details about these categories here:
What is the difference between “Critical”, “Error”, “Warning” and “Notice” in the PDF check?
Important note regarding a rating of 0%
A rating of 0% indicates that the number of deducted points is so high that the PDF has reached 0%.
Why the rating may remain at 0% after improvements
If you improve your PDF but the rating still shows 0%, this means: there are still many issues present.
Although improvements have been made, not enough issues have yet been resolved to raise the rating above 0%.
This does not mean that your PDF has not improved. It simply indicates that further corrections are required before the score increases.
Further information can also be found in the following article:
Why does a PDF show different errors after improvement than in the original?