Quicktips for PDF Accessibility
Before you begin…
Install Adobe Acrobat Professional after installing the MS Office Suite. The Professional version is required for the advanced accessibility tools.
Whenever available, use the PDF utility within each application through the menu bar or toolbar. If you are using MS Word, go to Adobe PDF—Change Conversion Settings, and check the ‘Convert document information' checkbox.
The original document should be constructed using a proper structure of headings, paragraphs, and lists in a linear order. All images should have alt-tags. Be aware that Acrobat does not always transfer the data into the PDF. MS Word works well, MS Publisher does not.
Prepare converted PDF file for accessibility
- First rule—do these steps in order!
- Make sure the text can be copied to another program for reading. If the text is contained in an image, it can't be read by a screen reader. For instance, PDFs created by scanning in a document.
- If text is contained in an image, run OCR to create a text file.
Document—Recognize text using OCR - In Document Properties, set the language and the document name. Screen readers use the language declaration, and search engines use the document name instead of the file name in a search list.
File—Document Properties—Advanced—Language, select English US in the dropdown
File—Document Properties—Description, fill out the Title and Author fields - Before using the accessibility tools, create any hyperlinks in your document and correct any errors.
- To add structure to the file, select Advanced—Accessibility—Add Tags to Document
- To view the reading order of the document for correction, select Advanced—Accessibility—TouchUp Reading Order. With the TouchUp Reading Order panel open, use your mouse to draw a rectangle around your title with a click and drag motion. Click Heading 1 in the panel. Draw rectangles around each of your subtitles and click Heading 2. Continue with heading levels as needed.
- Alt-text must be supplied for all graphics, link, charts, graphs, and photos. Right click on the image or other object to add the alt-text while the TouchUp Reading Order panel is open. If tags have not yet been applied, click on the image or object and assign a figure tag.
- Go to View—Reflow to check for proper linear reading order when you are finished.
Use the Accessibility Checker
Select Advanced Accessibility—Full Check to test the PDF file for accessibility. An accessibility report appears. If the Accessibility Checker reports that the file has "no problems," it's ready to upload to a website. If there are errors, follow the steps provided to correct the document.
Repair file structure
If the Accessibility Checker continues to fail your document, it could be you made changes after the initial tags were set. It may be easier to start over than repair file the file structure.
Select Advanced—Accessibility—TouchUp Reading Order, click on “Show Order Panel.”
This panel has multiple tabs where the content appears to be duplicated, but changing data in one tab does not necessarily transfer to the other tabs. You can use the options button from the ‘Tags' or ‘Content' tabs to find untagged objects.
For complete instructions, download Adobe's guide on Creating Accessible Documents with Adobe Acrobat 7. (115 page pdf guide)
For more information, contact:
Parker Owens, Web Accessibility Coordinator, EKU, 254 Case Annex, Richmond, KY
(859) 622-2743, parker.owens@eku.edu
