Accessible PDF’s
Adobe, Acrobat, PDF
• Adobe is a company; they are the creators of
Acrobat.
• Acrobat is a tool for creating, editing and viewing
PDF files.
• PDF is a format or type of document. It stands
for Portable Document Format. The PDF format
was created by Adobe.
• The terms Adobe, Acrobat, and PDF are related
in the same way as Microsoft, Word, and doc.
Accessibility Features in Acrobat
and Reader
• Accessibility features in Acrobat and
Reader fall into two broad categories:
features to make the reading of PDF
documents more accessible and features
to create accessible PDF documents. To
create accessible PDF documents, you
must use Acrobat, not Reader.
Accessible PDFs have the following
characteristics
. Searchable text
• A document that consists of scanned images of
text is inherently inaccessible because the
content of the document is images, not
searchable text.
• Assistive software cannot read or extract the
words, users cannot select or edit the text, and
you cannot manipulate the PDF for accessibility.
You must convert the scanned images of text to
searchable text using optical character
recognition (OCR) before you can use other
accessibility features with the document.
Alternative text descriptions
• Document features such as images and
interactive form fields can’t be read by a screen
reader unless they have associated alternative
text.
• Though web links are read by screen readers,
you can provide more meaningful descriptions
as alternative text. Alternative text and tool tips
can aid many users, including those with
learning disabilities.
More
• Fonts that allow characters to be extracted to
text
• The fonts in an accessible PDF must contain
enough information for Acrobat to correctly
extract all of the characters to text for purposes
other than displaying text on the screen.
• Acrobat extracts characters to Unicode text
when you read a PDF with a screen reader or
the Read Out Loud tool, or when you save as
text for a braille printer. This extraction fails if
Acrobat cannot determine how to map the font to
Unicode characters.
Reading order and document
structure tags
• To read a document’s text and present it in
a way that makes sense to the user, a
screen reader or other text-to-speech tool
requires that the document be structured.
Document structure tags in a PDF define
the reading order and identify headings,
paragraphs, sections, tables, and other
page elements.
Interactive form fields
• Some PDFs contain forms that a person is
to fill out using a computer. To be
accessible, form fields must be
interactive—meaning that a user must be
able to enter values into the form fields.
Navigational aids
• Navigational aids in a PDF—such as links,
bookmarks, headings, a table of contents,
and a preset tab order for form fields—
assist all users in using the document
without having to read through the entire
document, word by word. Bookmarks are
especially useful and can be created from
document headings.
Document language
• Specifying the document language in a
PDF enables some screen readers to
switch to the appropriate language.
Security that doesn’t interfere
with assistive software
• Some authors of PDFs restrict users from
printing, copying, extracting, adding
comments to, or editing text.
• The text of an accessible PDF must be
available to a screen reader. You can use
Acrobat to ensure that security settings
don’t interfere with a screen reader’s
ability to convert the on-screen text to
speech.
Related Information
• Check and correct reading order
• Workflow for creating accessible PDF forms
• Add alternative text and supplementary
information to tags
• Set the document language
• Prevent security settings from interfering with
screen readers
• Check accessibility with Full Check
PDF Tags
• When people talk about "accessible" PDF
files, they usually are referring to "tagged"
PDF files, even though there is more to an
accessible PDF than tags.
• PDF tags provide a hidden structured,
textual representation of the PDF content
that is presented to screen readers.
• They exist for accessibility purposes only
and have no visible effect on the PDF file.
HTML and PDF Tags
• HTML tags and PDF tags often use similar
tag names (e.g., both have tags named
h1) and organization structures, but they
really are quite different.
• If you are comfortable with HTML, you will
probably have an easier time creating and
editing tagged PDF files.
About tags, accessibility, reading
order, and reflow
• PDF tags are similar in many ways to XML tags.
PDF tags indicate document structure: which
text is a heading, which content makes up a
section, which text is a bookmark, and so on.
• A logical structure tree of tags represents the
organizational structure of the document.
• Thus tags can indicate the precise reading order
and improve navigation—particularly for longer,
more complex documents—without changing
the appearance of the PDF.
Tags Continued
• For people who are unable to see or interpret
the visual appearance of a document, assistive
software can determine how to present and
interpret the content of the document by using
the logical structure tree.
• Most assistive software depends on document
structure tags to determine the appropriate
reading order of text and to convey the meaning
of images and other content in an alternative
format, such as sound.
Untagged Documents
• In an untagged document, there is no such
structure information, and Acrobat must
infer a structure based on the Reading
Order preference setting, which often
results in page items being read in the
wrong order or not at all.
Reflow
• Reflowing a document for viewing on the
small screen of a mobile device relies on
these same document structure tags.
Does the Document Contain Tags?
• Often, Acrobat tags PDFs when you create
them.
• To determine whether a PDF contains tags,
choose File > Properties, and look at the Tagged
PDF value in the Advanced pane of the
Description tab.
• The logical structure tree appears on the Tags
tab and shows document content as page
elements nested at various levels.
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Checking the accessibility of
PDFs
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About accessibility checkers
Check accessibility with Quick Check
Check accessibility with Full Check
View Full Check results
About accessibility checkers
• You can still use any of several methods
provided by Acrobat for checking the
accessibility of a PDF.
• Use Quick Check to check for document
structure tags, searchable text, and appropriate
security settings for accessibility. This method is
often the best way to check for accessibility
before attempting to use a PDF.
• Use Full Check to perform a more thorough
check for many characteristics of accessible
PDFs, such as the use of fonts that can be
mapped reliably to Unicode text.
Reflow
• Use Reflow view to quickly check reading order.
• Use Read Out Loud to experience the document
as it will be experienced by readers who use this
text-to-speech conversion tool.
• Save the document as accessible text and then
read the saved text file in a word-processing
application to experience the document as it will
be experienced by readers who use a braille
printer.
• Use the TouchUp Reading Order tool, Tags tab,
and Content tab to examine the structure,
reading order, and contents of a PDF in detail.
Note
• The accessibility checker tools (Quick Check
and Full Check) can help to identify areas of
documents that may be in conflict with Adobe's
interpretations of the accessibility guidelines
referenced in the application and its
documentation.
• However, these tools don’t check documents
against all accessibility criteria, including those
in such referenced guidelines, and Adobe
doesn’t warrant that documents comply with any
specific guidelines or regulations
Check accessibility with Quick
Check
• Use Quick Check to examine a PDF to see if it
has searchable text, document structure tags,
and appropriate security settings to make it
accessible.
• Press Shift+Ctrl+6 (Windows) or
Shift+Command+6 (Mac OS).
• If the document is unstructured, a message may
appear, suggesting that you change reading
order preferences.
Check accessibility with Full
Check
• Use Full Check to check a PDF for many of the
characteristics of accessible PDFs.
• You can choose which kinds of accessibility
problems to look for and how you want to view
the results.
• Choose Advanced > Accessibility > Full Check.
• Select options for how you want to view the
results, the page range to check, and which
types of accessibility problems to check for.
More
• Click Start Checking. Note: A full accessibility check can
be time-consuming. You can stop the process by
pressing the Esc key.
• Consider choosing a smaller page range.You can
choose to view the results of a full accessibility check as
an HTML file or as comments that are placed throughout
the document where the accessibility problems are
detected.
• Because the Full Check feature is unable to distinguish
between essential and nonessential content types, it
may report issues that don’t affect readability. It’s a good
idea to review all issues to determine which ones require
correction.
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View Full Check results
• If you choose Create Accessibility Report in the Accessibility Full
Check dialog box, you can specify a folder where you want the
report to be saved. When the full check is complete, the accessibility
report appears in the navigation pane and is also saved in the folder
indicated. The name of the report file is the same as that of the
source PDF, except that .pdf is replaced by PDF.html.
• Choose Advanced > Accessibility > Open Accessibility Report.
• Select the HTML file, and then click OK. The report appears in the
navigation pane.
• Links in the accessibility report take you to the location of
inaccessible elements in the document pane or to procedures that
briefly explain how to fix accessibility problems.
Note
• Note: If you want to reopen the
accessibility report with the associated
PDF, don’t move or rename either file after
running the full check. The HTML file
refers to the PDF file with a relative path.
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Create Accessibility Report
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Creates an HTML report of accessibility issues, which is opened in the navigation pane and saved in the location
indicated by the Folder field.
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Include Repair Hints In Accessibility Report
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Create Comments In Document
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Adds comments to the document that indicate accessibility problems.
Delete all accessibility comments from the PDF after you repair the accessibility issues.
Page Range
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Adds suggestions for fixing accessibility problems to HTML report or comments.
The range of pages to check.
Name
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The set of accessibility criteria to check. For the Section 508 and W3C guidelines, the options area includes a Browse
button that links to the website for the respective guidelines. Select Adobe PDF to choose from options for the Adobe
PDF accessibility standard:
Alternative Descriptions Are Provided
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Checks for tagged figures that are missing alternative text.
Text Language Is Specified
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Checks for paragraphs that don’t have a language specified for them. Setting the language for an entire document in the Document
Properties dialog box corrects all errors related to this option.
Features for accessible reading
of PDFs
• Preferences and commands to optimize output for assistive software
and devices, such as saving as accessible text for a braille printer
• Preferences and commands to make navigation of PDFs more
accessible, such as automatic scrolling and opening PDFs to the
last page read
• Accessibility Setup Assistant for easy setting of most preferences
related to accessibility
• Keyboard alternatives to mouse actions
• Reflow capability to temporarily present the text of a PDF in a single
easy-to-read column
• Read Out Loud text-to-speech conversion
• Support for screen readers and screen magnifiers
Features for creating accessible
PDFs
• Creation of tagged PDFs from authoring
applications
• Conversion of untagged PDFs to tagged PDFs
• Security setting that allows screen readers to
access text while preventing users from copying,
printing, editing, and extracting text
• Ability to add text to scanned pages to improve
accessibility
More features
• Tools for editing reading order and document
structure (Acrobat Professional only)
• Tools for creating accessible PDF forms
(Acrobat Professional only)
• Though Acrobat Standard provides some
functionality for making existing PDFs
accessible, you must use Acrobat Professional
to perform certain tasks—such as editing
reading order or editing document structure
tags—that may be necessary to make some
PDF documents and forms accessible.
Setting accessibility preferences
• Acrobat provides several preferences that help make the
reading of PDFs more accessible for visually impaired
and motion-impaired users, including preferences that
control how PDFs appear on the screen and are read by
a screen reader.
• Most preferences related to accessibility are available
through the Accessibility Setup Assistant, which provides
on-screen instructions for setting these preferences.
Some preferences that affect accessibility aren’t
available through the Accessibility Setup Assistant; these
include preferences in the Reading, Forms, and
Multimedia categories. You can set all preferences in the
Preferences dialog box.
Names for Preferences
• The names shown for some preferences in
the Accessibility Setup Assistant are
different from the names for the same
preferences shown in the Preferences
dialog box. Acrobat Help uses the names
shown in the Preferences dialog box.
• For more information about accessibility
features in Acrobat and PDF, visit the
accessibility page of the Adobe website.
Navigate and control the
application with the keyboard
• You can navigate by using the keyboard instead of the
mouse. Several keyboard access features are available
on Mac OS; see the documentation for your operating
system for details. On Windows, some of the keyboard
shortcuts used to navigate in Acrobat may differ from
those used in other Windows applications.
• When you open Acrobat within a web browser, keyboard
commands are mapped to the web browser first.
Consequently, some keyboard shortcuts may not be
available for Acrobat or may be available only after you
shift the focus to the PDF.
• For information on accessibility features for navigating
Acrobat and PDF documents with the keyboard, visit the
accessibility page of the Adobe website.
Scroll automatically
• The automatic scrolling feature makes it easier to scan through long
PDFs, especially reflowed documents. You can scroll through pages
without using keystrokes or mouse actions.
• Choose View > Automatically Scroll.
• Do any of the following:
– To change the scrolling speed to a specific speed, press a number key
(9 for fastest, 0 for slowest).
– To increase or decrease the scrolling speed, press the Up Arrow or
Down Arrow key, depending on the direction of scrolling.
– To reverse the direction of scrolling, press the hyphen or minus sign key.
– To jump to the next or previous page, press the Left Arrow or Right
Arrow key.
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To stop automatic scrolling, press Esc or choose View >
Automatically Scroll again.
Save as accessible text for a
braille printer
• Note: This document uses the term ‘braille printer’ to refer to any
device that is used to convert accessible text to a form that can be
used by a person with blindness or low vision.
• You can save a PDF as accessible text to print on a braille printer.
Accessible text can be imported and printed out as formatted grade
1 or 2 braille documents by using a braille translation application.
See the documentation included with the braille translator for more
information.
• A text version of a PDF contains no images or multimedia objects,
although the text version of an accessible PDF contains alternative
text descriptions for such objects.
• Choose File > Save As.
• Choose Text (Accessible) from the Save As Type (Windows) or
Format (Mac OS) menu.
Reflow a PDF
• You can reflow a PDF to temporarily present it as a single column
that is the width of the document pane. This reflow view can make
the document easier to read on the small screen of a mobile device
or on a standard monitor at a large magnification, without the need
to scroll horizontally to read each line of text.
• You cannot save, edit, or print a document while it is in Reflow view.
• In most cases, only readable text appears in the reflow view. Text
that doesn’t reflow includes forms, comments, digital signature
fields, and page artifacts, such as page numbers, headers, and
footers. Pages that contain both readable text and form or digital
signature fields don’t reflow. Vertical text reflows horizontally.
Reflowing an Untagged Document
• Acrobat temporarily tags an untagged document before reflowing it.
As an author, you can optimize your PDFs for reflow by tagging
them yourself. Tagging ensures that text blocks reflow and that
content follows the appropriate sequences, so readers can follow a
story that spans different pages and columns without other stories
interrupting the flow.
• A quick way to check the reading order of a document is to view it in
Reflow view.
• If the tagged PDF doesn’t reflow the way you want, the content
order or reading order of the PDF file may contain inconsistencies,
or the tagging process itself may be the cause. You can use the
Content tab or TouchUp Reading Order tool to resolve reflow
problems.
• If the problem is simply that words don’t hyphenate the way you
expect them to, then you can insert special characters to resolve the
problem.
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Reading a PDF with a screen
reader
• Acrobat supports assistive software and devices—such as screen
readers and screen magnifiers—that enable visually impaired users
to interact with computer applications. When assistive software and
devices are in use, Acrobat may add temporary tags to open PDFs
to improve their readability. Use the Accessibility Setup Assistant to
improve how Acrobat interacts with the types of assistive software
and devices that you use. When using a screen reader, you can
change your reading settings for the current document by pressing
Shift+Ctrl+5 (Windows) or Shift+Command+5 (Mac OS).
• See the documentation for your assistive software or device, or
contact the vendor for more information about system requirements,
compatibility requirements, and instructions for using this software or
device with Acrobat.
Read a PDF with Read Out Loud
• The Read Out Loud feature reads aloud the text in a
PDF, including the text in comments and alternative text
descriptions for images and fillable fields. In tagged
PDFs, content is read in the order in which it appears in
the document’s logical structure tree. In untagged
documents, the reading order is inferred, unless a
reading order has been specified in the Reading
preferences.
• Read Out Loud uses the available voices installed on
your system. If you have SAPI 4 or SAPI 5 voices
installed from text-to-speech or language applications,
you can choose them to read your PDFs.
• Note: Read Out Loud isn’t a screen reader, and some
operating systems may not support it.
Workflow for creating accessible
PDFs
• At a high level, the process of creating
accessible PDFs consists of a few basic stages:
• Consider accessibility before you convert a
document to PDF.
• Add fillable form fields and descriptions, and set
the tab order.
• Tag the PDF.
• Add other accessibility features to the PDF.
• Evaluate the PDF and repair tagging problems.
N.B.
• Though these stages are presented in an order that suits
most needs, you may perform tasks in these stages in a
different order or iterate between some of the stages. In
all cases, you should first examine the document,
determine its intended purpose, and use that analysis to
determine the workflow that you apply.
• Consider accessibility before you
convert a document to PDF.
• Whenever possible, think about accessibility when you
create the source files in an authoring application, such
as a word-processing or page-layout application.
Authoring Application
• Typical tasks to do in the authoring application
include adding alternative text to graphics,
optimizing tables, and applying paragraph styles
or other document-structure features that can be
converted to tags. For more information, see
Creating a tagged PDF from an authoring
application.
• Note: If you intend to design PDF forms, Adobe
recommends using LiveCycle Designer, which is
dedicated to the design of interactive and static
forms. LiveCycle Designer adds structure tags to
forms, improving accessibility.
Add fillable form fields and descriptions,
and set the tab order
• If your document includes form fields, you must make
form fields interactive (fillable) and include descriptions
for the form fields. Use Forms > Run Form Fields
Recognition to automatically detect form fields and make
them fillable.
• Acrobat Professional has a Forms toolbar that provides
numerous tools for creating fillable form fields, such as
buttons, check boxes, list boxes, and text boxes. When
you create a field, you can type a description for it in the
Tooltip box in the General tab of the field’s Properties
dialog box. Screen readers will read this text aloud to the
user. You can also use the TouchUp Reading Order tool
to add descriptions to form fields.
Tagging the PDF
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Improve the accessibility of PDFs by adding and editing tags in Acrobat
Professional. If a PDF doesn’t contain tags, Acrobat may attempt to tag it
automatically when users read or reflow it, and the results may be
disappointing. If you provide users with a tagged PDF, the logical structure
tree sends the contents to a screen reader or other assistive software or
hardware in an appropriate order.
For best results, tag a document when converting it to PDF from an
authoring application. Alternatively, you can tag a PDF any time in Acrobat
Professional.
Tagging during conversion to PDF requires an authoring application that
supports tagging in PDF. Tagging during conversion enables the authoring
application to draw from the source document’s paragraph styles or other
structural information to produce a logical structure tree that reflects an
accurate reading order and appropriate levels of tags. This tagging can
more readily interpret the structure of complex layouts, such as embedded
sidebars, closely spaced columns, irregular text alignment, and tables.
Tagging during conversion can also properly tag the links, cross-references,
bookmarks, and alternative text (when available) that are in the file.
Tagging
• To tag a PDF in Acrobat Professional, use the Add Tags To
Document command. This command works on any untagged PDF,
such as one created with Adobe PDF Printer. Acrobat Professional
analyzes the content of the PDF to interpret the individual page
elements, their hierarchical structure, and the intended reading order
of each page, and then builds a tag tree that reflects that
information. It also creates tags for any links, cross-references, and
bookmarks that you added to the document in Acrobat.
• Though the Add Tags To Document command adequately tags most
standard layouts, it cannot always correctly interpret the structure
and reading order of complex page elements, such as closely
spaced columns, irregular text alignment, nonfillable form fields, and
tables that don’t have borders. Tagging these pages by using the
Add Tags To Document command can result in improperly combined
elements or out-of-sequence tags that cause reading order
problems in the PDF.
Tags Panel
• The Tags panel allows you to view, reorder,
rename, modify, delete, and create tags.
• To view the Tags panel, select View >
Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Tags.
• After expanding <Tags> and <Sect>, a long list
of tags should be visible.
• The list can be navigated, expanded, and
collapsed using a mouse or keyboard.
Many of the tags are similar, if not
identical to HTML
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below:
Tag
Stands for
<H1> to <H6> Heading
<P>
Paragraph
<L>
List
Description/Note
Similar to <ul> or <ol> in HTML
<LI> List Item
Should be nested just as in HTML, which can
get very confusing.
• Tag
<Table>, <TH>,
<TR>, and <TD>,
Stands for
Table, Table Row
Table Header, Table
Data
Figure
<Figure>
Description/Note
Similar to <img> tag in HTML
Highlight content
• One of the first things you should do in the
tags panel is to select the Highlight
Content in the Options ( ) menu. When
this option is checked, selecting a tag
should highlight the corresponding text,
image, or other element in the PDF file.
Find Tag From Selection
• Just as selecting a tag highlights the content in
the body of the PDF file, there is a way to
accomplish the opposite effect of highlighting the
tag that corresponds to selected content.
• First, click on the Select Tool .
• Next, select a portion of text, an image, or a
table.
• Finally, select the Options menu at the top of
the Tags panel and then select Find Tag From
Selection. This will highlight the tag or tags that
contain the content you previously selected.
Change tags
• At times, you will encounter a PDF file that contains
incorrect tags.
• You can modify these by right-clicking the tag you want
to change by selecting Properties, then the Tag tab, and
then selecting the appropriate new tag type from the
dropdown list labeled Type.
• For example, to change a tag from <Normal> to <H1>,
select the <Normal> tag you want to change and do the
following:
• Right click the tag and select Properties and select
Heading Level 1 from the list labeled Type.
Add tags to an untagged
document
• If you do not see any tags in the tags panel, your
document is untagged, and you will need to tag the file.
• To add tags to an untagged document, choose Tools
from the right-hand menu, then select Accessibility >
Add Tags to Document.
• This process can sometimes be extremely timeconsuming, and you will almost certainly have to edit
some of the tags.
• Still, it is a start and will probably be faster than doing all
the work manually. This is especially true if the document
contains tables.
Evaluate the PDF and repair
tagging problems.
• Once you have a tagged PDF, you must
evaluate the document for reading order
problems, tagging errors, and accessibility
errors, and then repair them as needed.
• No matter which method you use to tag the PDF,
you’ll probably need to use Acrobat Professional
to touch up the tagging and reading order for
complex page layouts or unusual page
elements.
• For example, the Add Tags To Document feature can’t always
distinguish between instructive figures and decorative page
elements such as borders, lines, or background elements. It may
incorrectly tag all of these as figures. Similarly, the Add Tags To
Document feature may erroneously tag graphical characters within
text—such as drop caps—as figures instead of including them in the
tag that represents the rest of the text block. Such errors can clutter
the tag tree and complicate the reading order that assistive
technology relies on.
• If you tag a document from within Acrobat Professional, the
application generates an error report after it completes the tagging
process. You can use this report to guide you as you repair tagging
problems. You can identify other tagging, reading order, and
accessibility problems for any PDF in Acrobat Professional by using
the Full Check tool or the TouchUp Reading Order tool.
Create a tagged PDF from a web
page
• A PDF that you create from a web page is only as accessible as the
HTML source that it is based on. For example, if the web page relies
on tables for its layout design (as many web pages do), the HTML
code for the table may not flow in the same logical reading order as
a tagged PDF would require, even though the HTML code is
sufficiently structured to display all the elements correctly in a
browser.
• Depending on the complexity of the web page, you may need to do
extensive repairs by using the TouchUp Reading Order tool or
editing the tag tree in Acrobat Professional.
• To produce the most accessible PDFs from web pages you create,
first establish a logical reading order in their HTML code. For best
results, employ the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that are
published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The
guidelines are available on the W3C website at www.w3.org.
Choose File
• Choose File > Create PDF > From Web Page.
• For URL, type the address of the web page, or
navigate to the web page location.
• Click Settings.
• In the General tab, select Create PDF Tags, and
then click OK.
• Select any other options as appropriate, and
then click Create.
• Creating a tagged PDF from an authoring application
• In most cases, you create tagged PDFs from within an
authoring application, such as Adobe FrameMaker,
Adobe InDesign, or Microsoft Word. Creating tags in the
authoring application generally provides better results
than adding tags in Acrobat.
• PDFMaker provides conversion settings that let you
create tagged PDFs in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and
Word.
• For an in-depth guide to creating accessible PDFs, visit
the accessibility page of the Adobe website.
• For more information, see the documentation for your
authoring application.
About tags in combined PDFs
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You can combine multiple files from different applications in one operation to create a single PDF. For example, you can combine wordprocessing files with slide presentations, spreadsheets, and web pages.
During conversion, Acrobat opens each authoring application, creates a tagged PDF, and assembles these PDFs into a single tagged
PDF.
The conversion process doesn’t always correctly interpret the document structure for the combined PDF, because the files being
assembled often use different formats. Because you may need to modify the reading order and tag tree of the combined document, you
may need to use Acrobat Professional to create an accessible PDF from multiple documents.
When you combine multiple PDFs into one tagged PDF, start with all untagged PDFs or all tagged PDFs. Combining tagged and
untagged PDFs results in a partially tagged PDF that isn’t accessible to people with disabilities; some users—such as those using screen
readers—will be completely unaware of the pages that don’t have tags. If you start with a mix of tagged and untagged PDFs, tag the
untagged files before proceeding. If the PDFs are all untagged, add tags to the combined PDF after you finish inserting, replacing, and
deleting pages.
Keep in mind that when you insert, replace, or delete pages, Acrobat accepts existing tags into the tag tree of the consolidated PDF in the
following manner:
When you insert pages into a PDF, Acrobat adds the tags (if any) for the new pages to the end of the tag tree, even if you insert the new
pages at the beginning or the middle of the document.
When you replace pages in a PDF, Acrobat adds the tags (if any) from the incoming pages to the end of the tag tree, even if you replace
pages at the beginning or the middle of the document. Acrobat retains the tags (if any) for the replaced pages.
When you delete pages from a PDF, Acrobat retains the tags (if any) of the deleted pages.
Pages whose tags are out of order in the logical structure tree can cause problems for screen readers. Screen readers read tags in
sequence down the tree, and therefore they might not reach the tags for an inserted page until the end of the tree. To fix this problem,
you’d use Acrobat Professional to rearrange the tag tree to put large groups of tags in the same reading order as the pages themselves.
To avoid the need for this advanced step, plan so that you always insert pages to the end of a PDF, building the document from front to
back in sequence. For example, if you create a title page PDF separately from the PDF that contains the body of the text, add the body
PDF to the title page PDF, even though the body document is much larger to process. This approach puts the tags for the body of the text
after the tags for the title page, and eliminates the need for you to rearrange the tags later in Acrobat Professional.
The tags that remain from a deleted or replaced page don’t connect to any content in the document. Essentially, they are large pieces of
empty tag tree sections. These unneeded tags increase the file size of the document, slow down screen readers, and can make screen
readers present confusing results. You should use Acrobat Professional to delete the tags of deleted pages from the tag tree.
For more information, see Create merged PDFs and PDF packages.
TouchUp Reading Order
• The TouchUp Reading Order tool allows a user to quickly
add and edit PDF tags and view the reading order of
elements on the page.
• Although it can speed up the tagging process, it does not
take the place of the other tools mentioned previously.
• To use the TouchUp Reading Order tool, select Tools
from the right-hand menu, then select Accessibility >
TouchUp Reading Order.
• When this feature is selected, the view on the screen
changes. All of the content is enclosed in numbered
boxes.
• Each of these boxes represent a tag and the number
corresponds with the tag number in the Order panel.
The TouchUp Reading Order window will also open.
Note
• You will notice a group of buttons with the
names of several common tags. You can use
these buttons to assign tags to a selected block
of text or an object.
• TouchUp Reading Order is not perfect. Selecting
text is difficult and many tags are not supported.
It is also somewhat difficult to assign alternate
text to images. Still, it is easier to mark up a PDF
file using this feature than any other way
Adding/Changing tags
• There are two ways to select an area of text, image,
table, or other element using TouchUp Reading Order.
• Drag a box around an element using the crosshairs that
have replaced the default pointer.
• It is sometimes difficult to select exactly the right area,
but it is a little easier if you try drawing a box that is
slightly larger than the element.
• Once you have selected a new element, you can assign
some of the most common tags to that element by
clicking on one of the several buttons.
Also
• You can also select everything within a box by clicking
on the number in the top-left corner.
• Now that you have selected the text, you can assign a
tag by clicking on the corresponding button.
• Once you select a button, Acrobat will place the selected
content in the appropriate tag. If you have the Tags
panel open, you can view these changes instantly.
• While in TouchUp Reading Order, you can also assign
alternate text to images by Right-clicking on the image
and choosing Edit Alternate Text.
Button
Adobe Tag
Text
<P>
Form Field
<Form>
Heading 1
<H1>
Heading 2
<H2>
Heading 3
<H3>
Figure
<Figure>
Additional Information
Button
Adobe Tag
Additional Information
<Figure> <Caption>
If you select the image and the nearby
caption image will be tagged as a figure
and the text will be tagged as its
caption.
Table
<Table>, <TR>, <TH>, and <TD>
Acrobat attempts to assign rows, columns,
and headings. Sometimes it does this
correctly, but this should still be
checked with the table inspector.
Cell
<TD>
Can be used to merge cells if they are
incorrectly split.
Formula
<Formula>
Background
none
Figure/Caption
Also called an artifact, this will hide an item
completely from a screen reader.
Add other accessibility features
to the PDF.
• This stage includes setting the document
language, making sure that security
settings don’t interfere with screen
readers, creating accessible links, and
adding bookmarks.
The Creation of PDF’s
• PDF files are not typically created in
Acrobat. They are usually created in
another program and converted to PDF.
• There are dozens or probably hundreds of
programs that can create PDF files, but
very few of them produce tagged PDF
files.
Applications to Create Accessible
PDF’s
• If you are using Microsoft Word or
PowerPoint, OpenOffice.org Writer, or
Adobe tools such as InDesign, you can
often create accessible, tagged PDF files
without opening Acrobat.
• Of course, the accessibility of the PDF
depends on the accessibility of the original
document.
MS Word
• The majority of the PDF files on the web were
probably created in Microsoft Word. The good
news is that it is possible to create accessible
PDF files in Office, as long as the following
requirements are met:
• The file must be accessible. That includes
providing alternative text for images, proper
headings, appropriate link text, etc. For more
information, read our tutorial on Microsoft Word.
• Office 2000-2003 users must have Acrobat
installed, as well as the add-in. Office 2007
users must have either Acrobat or the Microsoft
PDF add-in installed. Office 2010 users can
create tagged PDF files natively or with the
Adobe add-in.
• The file must be exported correctly. If a file is
created by printing to PDF, it will not be correctly
tagged.
In MS-Word 2007
• Before you save the file, select Options
and ensure that the Document structure
tags for accessibility option is selected.
Note
Or you can select Create PDF from
the Acrobat ribbon.
The program should create a
tagged PDF file by default. If
this is not the case select
Adobe PDF conversion
options and ensure that
Create Accessible (Tagged)
PDF file is selected
Word 2000-2003
• When you install Adobe Acrobat, an add-in for Microsoft
Office is installed by default. The add-in allows you to
convert Office files to PDF without opening Acrobat. This
add-in also installs an Adobe PDF menu, which should
appear in the Menu bar.
• To convert a Word Document to PDF, Select Adobe PDF
> Convert to Adobe PDF.
• If your document is correctly structured, this should
automatically create a tagged PDF. To ensure that files
are being converted correctly, go to Adobe PDF >
Change Conversion Settings and ensure Enable
Accessibility and Reflow with tagged Adobe PDF is
selected.
Convert to PDF in Acrobat
• If you are having trouble converting a document to
tagged PDF in Office, or if you want to merge multiple
documents into one tagged PDF file, you can convert a
file to PDF in Acrobat.
• There are several ways to do this; one of the easiest is
to select File > Create PDF > From File (in Acrobat X,
File > Create > PDF From File).
• If the file format is supported (i.e. the file is created in a
Microsoft or Adobe product), the file should be tagged as
it is converted.
• If no tags are present, select Edit > Preferences >
Convert to PDF, choose the correct format, select
Conversions Settings, and ensure that Enable
accessibility and reflow is selected.
Order Panel
• The order panel allows you to change the
reading order of the content on the page
so it matches the visual reading order. To
open the Order panel, select or View >
Show/Hide > Navigation Panes >Order
or select Show Order Panel in the
TouchUp Reading Order tool.
• At first glance, it resembles the Tags panel, but there are
a few differences.
• The document is divided into pages.
• Each element is numbered, and the numbers start over
on each page.
• There is no hierarchy of elements; everything is on the
same level.
• These differences help make the Order panel a much
easier way to reorder tags. To change the reading order
of an element, just click and drag the tag to the location
that reflects the correct reading order. This new order will
be reflected in the Tags panel and when the document is
viewed in Reflow mode.
Alternative text
• The easiest way to add alternative text is
with the TouchUp Reading Order tool.
When an image is tagged as an image (or
figure), the alternative text will appear next
to the image. If it has no alternative text,
the caption will read "Figure - No alternate
text exists."
• To add alternative text, Right click on the
image and select Edit Alternate Text.
Enter the appropriate alternative text in the
dialog box.
Table Inspector
• The Table Inspector allows you to easily
identify and assign scope to table headers.
• With the TouchUp Reading Order tool
open, select a table and then select Table
Inspector. You can now select table cells
that should be headers. Right click on a
selected cell or cells and choose Table
Cell Properties. A dialog box will appear.
• If the selected cell(s) needs to be tagged
as a header, select the Header Cell option
and assign a scope of either Row or
Column. After selecting OK, you will
notice that the table header cells will be
highlighted in red and the data cells will be
highlighted in gray.
•
Artifacts
• Artifacts are elements that are ignored by a screen
reader, much like an image with empty alternative text in
HTML is ignored. Important text should never be labeled
as an artifact. As with alternative text, the easiest way to
change an element to or from an artifact is with the
TouchUp Reading Order tool. Select the element and
press the Background button to make it an artifact.
• To search for artifacts, go to the Tags panel and select
Options > Find. A window will appear with several
search options. Artifact is the default search, so click
Find. If there are any artifacts, the search will identify
them and allow you to change them to other elements.
• To change a tag to an artifact in the tags panel, right
click on the item and select Change Tag to Artifact.
Some of the main requirements for
preparing accessible PDFs
• When a paper document is scanned to create a PDF the
resulting file is a PDF Image Only file - that is, bitmap pictures
of the pages. Although the page can be viewed with Acrobat,
the content cannot be recognised by screen readers and so is
not accessible.
• To make a PDF Image Only file accessible the document
needs to be "captured" using Adobe Acrobat Capture 3 or the
paper capture facility provided with Acrobat 6 and a tagged
PDF file created:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrcapture/main.html
• Text files such as documents generated by word processing
or desktop publishing software are the most suitable for
making accessible PDFs.
Tagged Documents
• Accessible documents must be in the tagged PDF
format and this is easiest to do with documents
generated with Microsoft Office 2000 or higher.
• If you are not using Microsoft Office it may be
necessary to download the 'Make Accessible Plug-in'
from the Adobe website for Acrobat 5, use the
automatic tagging facility in Acrobat 6 and perhaps
create some of the tags by hand.
• Word 2000 lets you create tagged Adobe PDF files.
However the Word document must be well marked up
and use styles to format text such as headings and
paragraphs. That is, not by highlighting a piece of text
and using the font and bold options to change its look.
More
• Also, use styles to provide structure to the document.
Use the "spacing before" and "spacing after"
paragraph properties rather than the enter (return) key
to add space between paragraphs.
• Use the Column command in Word to create columns
and the Insert Table or Draw Table tool to create
tables.
• Add alternative text to all images. In Word you can add
descriptive text via the Web tab of the pictures
Properties dialogue box within the Format menu.
• All the parts of a composite image should be grouped
using the Group command.
• Use the Acrobat Tags palette and the forms tool to
create accessible electronic PDF forms.
Untagged PDF files
• Untagged PDF files such as those created with Acrobat 4
(and earlier) can be converted into accessible (tagged) PDF
with the 'Make Accessible' plug-in developed for Acrobat 5 or
from within Acrobat 6. Tagged files created in this way should
always be checked with a screen reader for reading order and
content sense as well as accessibility.
• Information about the 'Make Accessible' plug-in and download
are available at:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?hexID=8
8de
• When information is provided via a PDF, the link to the
document should include a short summary of the information
it contains, an indication of the document size in KB file size
and page number and an estimated download time at 56
kbps.
Is PDF Accessibility Still An
Issue?
• The short answer is YES
• The commitment Adobe has made to improving the
accessibility of PDFs has been widely recognised by
disability groups and accessibility advocates and has
directly benefited many users of assistive
technologies.
• The general opinion of the accessibility community
world wide however, is that the use of PDFs on
Websites still presents a significant barrier for people
with disabilities, in particular for sight impaired Web
users who rely on screen reader technology.
• In Australia, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission has indicated that the use of PDF
documents on Websites is still a significant
accessibility issue.
Areas of Concern 1
• The use of PDF documents on Websites raise five possible
areas of concern:
• Legacy documents. PDF documents generated with early
versions of Acrobat that are not accessible and have not been
converted into more accessible PDFs. In cases where these
legacy documents are no longer relevant the simplest solution
to this problem is their removal from the site.
• Scanned documents. PDF Image Only files created by
scanning an existing printed document are often very hard to
make accessible.
• Unused accessibility enhancements. The enhanced
accessibility of PDFs generated with recent versions of Adobe
Acrobat is only achievable when the accessibility features are
used appropriately.
More areas of Concern 2
• Lack of accessible PDF support by all operating systems.
Currently full accessibility support is only available for 32-bit
Windows environments.
• Variable assistive technology support for PDFs.
Accessibility of PDFs by assistive technologies depends on
the manufacturers of those technologies incorporating PDF
support into their products. Several manufacturers have done
this with recent versions of their products, but for the many
users of earlier versions of the technology PDFs will remain
inaccessible.
• In 2004, the use of PDFs can still cause accessibility
problems for some Web users. However over the next few
years, the extent of this problem is likely to diminish as older
PDFs are removed from Websites, more accessible PDFs are
produced and an increasing number of assistive technology
users upgrade their devices.
Alternatives for PDF Content
• PDFs are a non-standard W3C format that requires the
Acrobat browser plug-in to access the information contained
in the document. Even though recent advances mean that it is
now possible to create a PDF document that can be accessed
by a greater number of people, PDFs should not be
considered accessible in terms of the W3C Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines.
• Accessibility enhanced PDFs still can't be accessed by a
range of web users including:
• People who are unable to install the Acrobat reader software.
• People with slow connection speeds who are not willing to
install Acrobat.
• People who use operating systems and browsers that do not
support PDF.
• People with assistive technology versions that do not support
PDF.
If it cannot be done
• "If after best efforts, you cannot create an accessible
page, provide a link to an alternative page that uses
W3C technologies, is accessible, has equivalent
information (or functionality), and is updated as often
as the inaccessible (original) page."
WCAG Checkpoint 11.4 In most cases, the text
information contained in a PDF was originally
generated in some other format, commonly MS Word
or Excel. This original source material can be used
(and where necessary modified) to create an
equivalent alternative for the information provided in
the PDF
• The ideal accessible alternative for content provided in
a PDF file is an equivalent HTML page that is both
valid and accessible.
RTF
• Where a HTML alternative is not possible, the
information should be provided in text format
(RTF) and failing this as a Word or Excel
document. In these cases, descriptions should be
provided for information conveyed via charts,
graphs and images.
• Where it is not possible to provide an accessible
online alternative for some content, for example a
complex form or detailed geographic map, contact
details such as a phone number and/or email
address should be provided so that someone who
is unable to access the PDF can still obtain the
information in contains.
References and Additional
Information
• Maximum Accessibility: Making Your Web Site More Usable for
Everyone. John Slatin and Sharron Rush, 2003. Addison-Wesley,
Boston.
• Adobe Acrobat: Solutions for Accessibility. Adobe
• How to Create Accessible Adobe PDF Files. Adobe
• Is PDF Accessible? AccessIT (National Center on Accessible
Information Technology in Education, University of Washington)
• Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Techniques. WebAim
• Quick reference for Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and 6.0. University of
Wisconsin-Madison
• Accessibility of PDF Documents. Jim Byrne, MCU Accessible web
design consultancy.
• PDF and Public Documents: A White Paper, Janina Sajka and Joe
Roeder. American Foundation for the Blind
• World Wide Web Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory
Notes. Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
(HREOC)
• http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG-PDFTECHS-20010913/
• http://macromedia.com/accessibility/produ
cts/acrobat/training.html