Taxiway

Your PDFs, cleared for takeoff.

Native macOS PDF preflight inspector. 55 checks across 8 categories, 14 automated fixes, 10 built-in profiles. No subscription. No account. No dependencies. Free forever.

What it does

Drop a PDF. Taxiway parses it, runs every check you've configured, and tells you exactly what's wrong — and where. Click a failed check and the offending object lights up on the page. No log files. No guessing.

Then fix it. Convert to CMYK, embed fonts, flatten transparency, downsample images, add bleed — 10 reactive fixes trigger automatically when checks fail, plus 4 proactive tools available anytime. Your original is never touched.

Checks

| Category | Examples | |----------|----------| | File | File size, encryption, JavaScript, embedded files, metadata fields | | PDF | Version, standard compliance (X-1a/X-3/X-4/A-2b), output intent, transparency, layers, annotations, tagged, linearized | | Pages | Page count, page size, mixed sizes, rotation | | Marks & Bleed | Trim box, bleed (zero/uniform/range), art & slug boxes | | Colour | Colour space, spot colours, rich black, overprint, ink coverage, registration colour, text colour mode, named colour gradients | | Fonts | Embedding, font type, size range | | Images | Resolution, colour mode, file type, ICC profiles, alpha, blend modes, scaling, GenAI metadata, C2PA provenance | | Lines | Stroke weight, zero-width hairlines |

Every check is parametric — thresholds, operators, and severity are all configurable.

Profiles

10 built-in profiles ship with the app:

• PDF/X-1a — strict CMYK press production
• PDF/X-3 — European print with ICC colour management
• PDF/X-4 — modern press with transparency support
• PDF/A-2b — long-term archival, tagged, no JS/encryption
• Screen / Digital — optimised for screen distribution
• Digital Print — short-run toner, 3mm bleed, no overprint
• Newspaper — web-offset, strict ink limits, CMYK only
• Large Format — signage and banners, relaxed resolution
• Loose — minimal checks, warnings only
• AI Content Audit — flags GenAI markers and C2PA provenance

Clone any profile, adjust every parameter, import/export as .taxiprofile JSON.

Fixes

| Reactive (triggered by failures) | Proactive (always available) | |----------------------------------|------------------------------| | Convert to CMYK | Add / Change Bleed | | Embed Fonts | Change Page Size | | Downsample Images | Set PDF Version | | Flatten Transparency | Add Trim Marks | | Convert Rich Black | | | Limit Ink Coverage | | | Remove Annotations | | | Flatten Alpha | | | Flatten Layers | | | Assign Default ICC | |

Fixes are queued, reviewed, then applied in batch. Powered by a bundled Ghostscript binary — no external dependencies required.

TaxiwayCore

The entire preflight engine lives in TaxiwayCore, a standalone Swift Package with zero UI dependencies and zero third-party libraries. Pure Swift 6. Sendable throughout. Immutable document model.

.package(path: "TaxiwayCore")

$ swift test
Build complete!
✓ 524 tests in 83 suites passed

Import it into your own tools. Run it on a server. Embed it in CI. Build a competing app — honestly, we'd be flattered.

Building

Requires Xcode 26+ and macOS 26+.

# Build the app
xcodebuild -scheme Taxiway -destination 'platform=macOS' build

# Run TaxiwayCore tests
cd TaxiwayCore && swift test

Export

Full reports in JSON, CSV, and formatted PDF. Every export includes the complete parsed document snapshot.

License

Apache License 2.0. The bundled Ghostscript binary retains its own AGPL license.