Adobe reader accessibility checker pdf how to#
Adobe reader accessibility checker pdf pdf#

Adobe reader accessibility checker pdf pdf#

Remediating a PDF file created from an inaccessible Word file, for example, takes much more time than creating an accessible Word file and then exporting it as a PDF.Īdobe Acrobat Pro is available for download for faculty and staff at CU Boulder at no cost and is required for certain processes to assess or improve the accessibility of PDFs. If you have an existing inaccessible PDF file and no longer have access to the source file, it can be remediated for accessibility directly within Acrobat Pro, but it is not a simple task. If either step does not occur, the resulting PDF will not be accessible. Secondly, the process of exporting to PDF must be done in a way that preserves the accessibility features of the original file. First, all accessibility best practices should be followed when creating the document in the original software. To create an accessible PDF from a source file, two things must happen. HTML documents offer similar functionality to PDFs, such as the inability of viewers to edit the document and the ability to control the way the document is displayed across devices and platforms. PDF accessibility can be complex, and fixing problems in a PDF document requires a high level of expertise that represents a significant investment in training and practice. Because of this complexity, one important rule of PDF accessibility is that if you can replace a PDF with a web page or a Word document, you should. Unfortunately, image-based PDFs are completely inaccessible as they are and require conversion into text using optical character recognition (OCR) software before they are accessible.īecause there are a wide array of source applications that can generate PDF files, creating an accessible PDF file can be a complex process and requires a variety of skills in both Acrobat and the original software in which the document was created. Alternatively, many PDF files are simply images of text that are created by scanning hard copy documents.

PDFs are typically created from a source document such as a Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign, or Microsoft PowerPoint file, and then are exported into the PDF format.

Making accessible PDFs or fixing accessibility problems in existing PDF files can be a complex and highly variable process.

Adobe reader accessibility checker pdf how to#

This page will teach you how to do some basic assessment of PDFs for accessibility, help you understand the process of creating an accessible PDF, and point you to additional resources that can help you learn more or experts who can help.