PDF Document Accessibility Help Index

These links focus on improving the accessibility of Adobe PDF documents. Please keep in mind that it is always easiest to fix accessibility issues in an accessible source document (this is a document created in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or any other software before exporting it as a PDF). If you need to make changes to your documents in the future, editing them in software such as Word or PowerPoint is easier than editing a PDF in Adobe Acrobat. If you are not the creator of a document, sometimes it is not possible to locate the original source document. In these cases, you will need to fix the accessibility issues present in the PDF using Adobe Acrobat.

If you are sourcing documents such as scholarly articles from online library databases, you should always check to ensure they are accessible before distributing them to your students. You can use the links in this help index to check that they are accessible, or fix any accessibility issues you find. Do not assume that documents from online databases are accessible. You will find that some databases are more accessible than others. If you see HTML versions of documents in databases, consider favoring those over PDFs. HTML files are plain text and can usually be read by assistive technology, such as screen readers. For more information about the level of accessibility of various library databases, please see this link from the Library Accessibility Alliance page about library database accessibility. ​​
 

Resources for Improving the Accessibility of PDF Documents

• Using the Accessibility Checker in Adobe Acrobat
• Running Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in Adobe Acrobat
• Adding Document Tags and Verifying Reading Order in Adobe Acrobat
• Adding Alternative Text to Images in Adobe Acrobat
• Adding Column and Row Headers to Tables in Adobe Acrobat
• Use a resource such as the TPGi Color Contrast Analyser or the WebAIM Color Contrast Checker to ensure adequate color contrast