NYS Digital Innovation Lab

Making PDFs More Accessible: Remediating PDFs using Adobe Acrobat

Overview

While the best time to ensure document accessibility is during the authoring process (pre-PDF), most issues are fixable via Adobe Acrobat’s built-in accessibility tools.

If you’re relatively familiar with Web Accessibility (making a web page document accessible), you’re in luck! A PDF is just another document; thus, most of the same guidelines & methodologies apply. Just like HTML tags/markup, semantically tagging a PDF document enables assistive technology users to understand the content structure. (If you have ever used the Formatting menu in Word/Google Docs to make text a heading or a bulleted list? Congrats! You’ve already practiced authoring an accessible document.)

For simple text documents, this entails:

  • Setting the Title & Language of the document
  • Conveying the Content Structure (e.g., indicating headings, lists & tables)

If your document contains non-text content (e.g., images/graphics):

  • Providing equivalent text for meaningful images/graphics (like logos)
  • Hiding images/graphics that serve a purely aesthetic purpose via markup

If you document contains any links:

  • Ensuring links in scanned documents are converted into working links
  • Assigning user-friendly labels to URL-only links (e.g., “https://ny.gov/“)

If your document contains a form field/control (e.g., text field, radio button):

  • Ensuring form fields are rendered as interactive, fillable form fields with an accurate label
  • Indicating what type of form field/control it is, whether an option is selected/checked, and completing a field is required

For content authors, this also means:

  • Using colors with sufficient contrast & not relying on color alone to convey information
  • Providing visual labels for form fields & indicating when a form field is required
  • Providing white space between sentences/paragraphs for readability

Before You Begin

Have the working file handy?

If you have access to the source document, it’s easier to check & fix your accessibility issues using Microsoft’s built-in Accessibility Checker.

But first, “Save As”

Whenever you begin working on a PDF, it is strongly advised to make a copy first and work on the copy (just in case).

Setting Up Acrobat

Some of Acrobat’s built-in accessibility tools are not visible by default. See Configuring Acrobat Pro or Enabling the Accessibility Tools to get setup for a painless remediation success.

Using Adobe Acrobat Pro to Check & Fix Accessibility Issues

Option 1: Use the Accessibility Checker to verify, review & fix issues

The Accessibility Checker does just that; it checks how compliant your PDF is and displays a panel listing the failures & successes with prompts to do address and explain each finding.

STEP 1: Run the Accessibility Checker to check for any accessibility issues.

STEP 2: Review the Accessibility Checker Results: Some issues (e.g., adding a missing title), are easily fixable in the Accessibility Checker panel. “Tagged PDF” & Reading Order issues are most easily fixed via the Tags panel (Step 3).

STEP 3: Open the Tags Panel to Review & Repair Tags: If most of your content is not tagged, you can use the Auto-Tag** tool to automatically tag your content. Alternatively, edit/delete tags (including using drag-and-drop to reorder or combine tags) using the Tags Panel.

Repeat Step 1 as needed. Rerun Accessibility Checker to confirm your issues are fixed.

Option 2: Use the “Make Accessible” Wizard Action Tool**

This wizard walks you through each step of making your PDF accessible, such as setting the title and tab order, detecting any form fields, adding alt text, and taking care of the tagging.

**Running the Wizard Action or Auto Tag tools will overwrite any pre-existing tags. Automated tagging tools are cool, but they cannot guarantee 100% correct results. To manually repair malformed any tags, check out the Repairing Reading Order resources.

Fixing PDF Accessibility Issues

Security Settings

Converting Scanned Documents

Setting the Title of Your Document

Specifying Language(s)

Conveying the Content Structure

Repairing the Reading Order

Links/Hyperlinks

Non-Text Content (Images/Graphics)

Form Fields

Applicable if your PDF contains a form field/component (e.g., text field, checkbox, radio button, dropdown, submission button):

Overviews, Tips & Tricks for PDFs

Authoring an Accessible Document

The best way to ensure a document’s accessibility is by formatting the content in your authoring tool (e.g., Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook too). Microsoft Office tools also come with built-in accessibility tools to check & fix issues.

While Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker is awesome, it’s not exhaustive. It will not report:

  • Missing document title
  • Inaccurate heading hierarchy
  • Whether an image is decorative or required alternative text

Using the Built-in “Accessibility Checker” in Microsoft Office

Remediating documents you’ve already created: Already done? Run the Accessibility Checker, review the “Recommended Actions”, and resolve the issues found accordingly.

Authoring an accessible document in Real-Time: Just getting started? Run the Accessibility Checker while you're working and resolve your accessibility issues in real-time.

Resources

The best way to ensure a document’s accessibility is by formatting the content in your authoring tool (e.g., Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook too). Microsoft Office tools also come with built-in accessibility tools to check & fix issues.

For Designers/Creatives:

(**Advisory: PDFs are exempt from text spacing WCAG criteria,
but it’s always great to make your text more readable for everyone.)

Additional Resources

Screen-Readers

Web Browsers

Download PDF

Document Accessibility Resources

Fix accessibility issues and find resources to make PDFs more accessible.

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