PDF to PDF/A converter and validator for .NET or Linux

Question

I want to convert PDFs to PDF/A under either Windows or Linux.

If Windows I want a managed .NET library (with a DLL, not installation).

If Linux then the validation file must be readable for code.

Both converter and validator must be royalty-free.

Answer 1

This question has been asked several times on Stack Overflow:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/464539/convert-to-pdf-a-and-check-compliance-under-linux
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/569129/how-can-i-test-a-pdf-document-if-it-is-pdf-a-compliant
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2461852/free-java-library-for-converting-existing-pdf-to-pdf-a (You can use IKVM to run on .NET.)

The answers link to several open-source libraries that do what you want, with some caveats:

• Converting between complex specs is difficult, and tools generally have bugs. It may not be possible to convert losslessly.
• Conversion may require information you don't have available, like XMP metadata and the fonts on the originating computer.