This documentation was created using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC for Mac desktops.

Reconsider: Do You Need a PDF?

Fixing a PDF for accessibility issues can be a time-consuming and arduous process. First, consider if you really need a PDF. For example, a PDF form could be recreated in Qualtrics or Google Forms. A PDF with a memo can be a page of text on your website. We strongly recommend only using PDFs in cases in which they are the only option for delivering content: for example, a form that must be printed.

Start from the source

Start by authoring accessibility best practices in the original document format, such as in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, and then export the file as a PDF. It is much easier to include and resolve accessibility issues in the source document than to try and remediate accessibility issues in the PDF document.

• Create Accessible Word Documents
• Create Accessible PowerPoint Presentations

Checking a PDF for accessibility

Can you select text?

If you're unable to select text in a PDF, the PDF is an image file with graphic elements representing the letters on the page, not actual text content. An image-based PDF must be converted into searchable text using optical character recognition (OCR) before addressing accessibility in the document.

To perform OCR in Adobe Acrobat, open your scanned PDF, go to the Tools menu, and select Scan & OCR. Then, click In This File under the "Recognize Text" heading and select the blue Recognize Text button to make the text searchable and editable. For the web version, go to acrobat.adobe.com, choose Convert > Recognize text with OCR, and follow the prompts.

Is the document tagged?

Accessible PDF documents will contain a tag structure, that is, a tree-like data structure that represents the content and provides key information for assistive technologies, including:

• The logical reading order
• Document headings, paragraphs, lists, and other page elements
• Data tables
• Images and image descriptions
• Forms and form fields

In addition to accessibility, the advantage of having a tagged PDF document is that documents can be resized and reflowed for magnified viewing and on mobile devices.

Add PDF Tags to the document

A Recognition Report will immediately appear. To view the Tag structure, select the Tags icon.

1. Select View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Tags.
2. On the left-hand side of the window, the Tags menu will appear.
3. The Tag icon will be located in the Tools Shortcut Menu (located on the far-left side of the window).
4. In the Tags Panel, right-click No Tags available.
5. Select Add Tags to Document.