Put your PDF on the couch.

Tag boxes, a numbered reading path and the order listed in the inspector, from one structure tree.

1 / 3Every tag in its role colour. The tree, the page and the legend share one colour per role, and problems are flagged right in the tree.

2 / 3A backtrack turns amber. The Caption is read before its Figure, so pdfxray raises a reading-order-backtrack diagnostic.

3 / 3The order, listed and compared. Read from the structure tree, then checked against paint order to show where the two disagree.

What a screen reader announces, item by item, using each reader’s substitution and skip rules.

1 / 3Pick a reader. Structure (spec), Acrobat with NVDA/JAWS, Firefox, Chrome/Edge. Everything but the spec is labelled an approximation.

2 / 3Hear it item by item. Alt replaces the Figure, the DRAFT artifact is skipped, and a footnote is flagged 6 items away from its note.

3 / 3Follow along on the page. The item being spoken is outlined on the page, in reading order.

Every operator of the content stream, every glyph on the page, and the chain that connects them.

1 / 3The content stream, as a tree. Every operator in order, with untagged text like the DRAFT watermark flagged in red.

2 / 3Click a single glyph. ‘A’ U+0041 in /F1 at 26 pt, boxed with its baseline and advance.

3 / 3Every metric of that glyph. Char code, Unicode source, width, advance, ascent and descent, with the font it came from.

The decoded drawing instructions come first. The raw bytes are one tab away.

1 / 3Problems surface in the list. Fonts that are not embedded and streams with the wrong length are flagged before you open them.

2 / 3Instructions, explained. Every operator gets a plain note: start tagged content: H1, MCID 0, draw “Annual Report 2025”.

3 / 3Diagnostics in plain words. Declared 1,200 B, actual 1,204 B. Acrobat silently fixes this; other readers may drop the last command.

All five page boxes with where each comes from, and distances between anything on the page.

1 / 3Where every box comes from. MediaBox, CropBox, BleedBox, TrimBox and ArtBox: set on the page, inherited or defaulted.

2 / 3Measure anything. Drag for a distance, Shift-click a second item for the gap. Hold Shift to snap to 45°.

3 / 3Gap and alignment, in numbers. 29.1 pt apart, left edges aligned, in every unit at once, plus trim and bleed for print.

veraPDF runs as a separate process. Every failure lands on the element it is about.

1 / 3Grouped by rule. 9 failed, 3 rules, 1,284 passed, with each finding listed under its rule.

2 / 3On the exact node. Badges sit on the element, operator or font that failed.

3 / 3Why it matters, how to fix it. In plain words, with an example fix. pdfxray never changes your file.

Step through the content stream and watch each item land on the page.

1 / 3Step through the stream. Step 211 of 377. Arrow keys step, Shift jumps to the next visible change.

2 / 3Watch it land. The current item is outlined. Whatever is painted later is ghosted.

3 / 3Know what covers it. 82% visible, 18% under the watermark: covered later by op #355 “DRAFT”.