Equidox: A Better Alternative to Adobe Acrobat for PDF Accessibility

Satisfied team working at a laptop on Equidox PDF remediation as an alternative to Adobe

Why the right PDF accessibility tool matters

Creating truly accessible PDFs isn’t just a matter of checking boxes — it demands precise tagging, accurate reading order, correctly structured lists and tables, meaningful alt text, and sustainable workflows that ensure long-term compliance. While many organizations rely on Adobe Acrobat Pro, remediation using Acrobat is often slow, error-prone, and dependent on highly trained specialists. The reason is simple: Adobe Acrobat is not an accessibility tool — it’s an authoring tool with accessibility features added on after the fact.

Equidox is purpose-built for PDF accessibility. Its intuitive interface and intelligent automation handle many of the tedious, repetitive remediation tasks that slow teams down. Even users without deep accessibility expertise can produce compliant, screen-reader-friendly PDFs quickly and confidently.

Reading Order: Zone-based vs Tag-tree struggle

In Acrobat, fixing reading order typically means opening the “Reading Order” tool and diving into the Tags panel to reorder elements manually. For complex layouts, multi-column pages, or documents with footnotes, this becomes highly labour-intensive.

Equidox changes the paradigm: the Smart Zone Detector utilizes computer vision to detect text, headings, images, and columns automatically. Users can draw or adjust zones and apply reading order with a single click. Its built-in decimal placement system eliminates manual tag renumbering.

“The user interface is simple, intuitive, and easy to use. … I like the flexibility of tagging different elements for reading order, hiding zones, etc., and being able to maintain the design while making everything accessible in one PDF.” — Rick Hansen Foundation.

Images & Diagrams: Alt text & zone control

Images, diagrams, and complex visuals are often the hardest parts of remediation. In Acrobat, users select each image, open the Tags panel, ensure the “Figure” role is applied, add alt text manually, and verify that the reading order flows correctly. It’s a manual, multi-step process.

Using Equidox as an alternative to Adobe, manage images in an image pane: you can create image zones, apply alt text in bulk or on each page, collaborate with SMEs for descriptions, and easily artifact decorative content. Complex diagrams are broken into sub-zones.

“By using Equidox, I reduced remediation time by 70%. This is going on my third year using Equidox, and I will continue to use this valuable tool to support our digital accessibility initiative.” — Phillip Esparza, Hill College, Texas.

Although Acrobat supports alt text and image tagging, the process remains manual and less guided, so more risk of missed or incorrect alt descriptions.

Headings: One-click structure that scales

Well-structured headings are critical for screen readers. In Acrobat, you often must manually tag each heading level (H1, H2…), navigate the tag tree, ensure proper nesting, and correct errors flagged by the Accessibility Checker.

Equidox streamlines this with one-click heading assignments: visually select heading zones and assign levels (H1, H2…) by keyboard shortcuts (e.g., “1” for H1, “2” for H2). The system validates logical structure before export, flagging inconsistent heading hierarchies.

“Before Equidox, PDF remediation was a slow and frustrating task. Now, what took hours takes minutes.” — State Accessibility Specialist

For organizations producing many documents, this scalability and consistency make Equidox much more efficient than manually managing heading structure in Acrobat.

Lists & Tables: Automated tagging vs manual headaches

Lists

Lists require correct HTML- or PDF-tag structure (L > LI > LBody) for accessibility. They can be one of the most time-consuming elements to remediate in PDFs. In Acrobat, remediating is a manual process: you have to identify list items, tag them correctly, ensure nested levels, then validate in the Tags panel.

Equidox’s Smart List Detector identifies lists automatically—even nested ones. Users draw a zone, apply the “List” type, and the Detector automatically identifies each list item and its “child” items. Equidox provides an HTML preview you can use to verify the structure. This reduces hours of manual work.

Tables

Tables are among the most complex elements to remediate manually. Acrobat provides a table editor and reading order tool, but success depends on clear borders and structure; ambiguous layouts often require rebuilding tables in the authoring app.

Equidox uses a Smart Table Detector: you draw a zone around a table, press “T”, and Equidox’s Table Editor allows you to adjust gridlines, set header rows/column spans, and let the system build the structure. The HTML preview confirms correct output. It even provides an automatically generated table summary.

In practice, while Acrobat may still be used for one-off simple tables, the speed and reliability of list/table automation in Equidox make it the better choice for high-volume or complex document environments.

“We tell our team how amazed we are at the artificial intelligence that goes into it — it just figures things out for you.” — Regional Agency Digital Accessibility Manager.

Usability: Lower training burden, broader adoption

A major barrier in PDF remediation is that many content creators or occasional users have minimal accessibility training. Acrobat requires proficiency in tag‐tree navigation, reading order tools, table editors, and manual fixes. Training every content creator on PDF remediation can become expensive and time-consuming. If content creators aren’t trained and proficient in remediation, the process often funnels through the IT or another more technical department, causing bottlenecks.

Equidox is designed for ease of use with an intuitive UI, guided workflows, zone-based editing, keyboard shortcuts, and short training videos. Users across departments can pick up remediation tasks quickly. Because the workflow is visual and simplified, departments can decentralize remediation tasks without needing specialized tag-tree expertise.

“It’s way easier for people to learn. Even if they only use it occasionally, it’s not that hard for them to review one of the Equidox training videos and relearn it.” — Gilpin County, CO.

This broader adoption means accessibility no longer remains a centralized backlog—it becomes integrated into regular document workflows, which is difficult to achieve with Acrobat alone.

Licensing & Cost Model: Shareable access for real teams

“While Acrobat has broad license distribution, its accessibility features require Acrobat Pro, and remediation often still rests on highly trained users—raising cost and making broad deployment harder.” — Adobe Blog

Equidox supports licensing models such as concurrent user access and team-based deployment, making it feasible for many departments to share the platform. One user success story:

“Equidox was more cost-effective and user-friendly than other remediation solutions we evaluated, including Adobe and CommonLook.” — IT Administrator, New England Municipality.

This flexibility means remediation can be scaled across teams without per-seat constraints—enabling organizations to adopt accessibility as a standard part of document production rather than a separate specialist project.

High-volume automation: Keep up with real workloads

Many organizations must remediate thousands of PDFs annually, including statements, reports, briefs, and multi-language versions. Manual workflows in Acrobat are simply unsustainable when volume is high; while Acrobat supports scripting and tag tree edits, it lacks a full-fledged automation engine for remediation at scale.

Equidox offers a Zone Transfer feature, allowing users to copy existing remediated layouts. This eliminates the need to re-remediate similar and recurring documents. It’s a superior alternative to Adobe Acrobat.

“We can now handle thousands of pages per month thanks to the AI features of Equidox.” — Regional Agency Digital Accessibility Manager.

For large institutions, the ability to automate remediations while maintaining accuracy is a compelling differentiator over Acrobat’s largely manual workflow.

QA and Preview: Faster validation loops

Quality assurance remains a critical part of remediation: documents must not just be tagged, they must work with screen readers and other assistive technology. In Acrobat, QA often involves exporting, running accessibility checks, testing with a screen reader, returning to tags, repeating—multiple tool switching.

Equidox integrates QA into the remediation workflow with built-in HTML preview, output warnings before export for missed alt text, incorrect heading structure, or list/table issues, and an interactive interface to correct issues.

This streamlined loop reduces rework and speeds up final validation—key when deadlines are tight.

“When a colleague first suggested Equidox as an alternative to Adobe… what took staff sometimes over an hour to do in Adobe is completed in minutes including reviewing for accuracy with a screen reader. And with a high degree of accuracy and confidence, the PDFs meet our compliance directives.” — Julie Kent, Town of Huntsville / Huntsville Public Library

Real-world proof: Customer success integrated throughout

Users are so happy to switch to an easier and faster tool like Equidox.

“My management team mandated that all four hundred employees be trained and certified using Adobe Acrobat… After one training session… they found it too complex. That led us to Equidox. The difference between the two is night and day. Wow, what a user-friendly application!” — State Health Agency in California.

“Adobe was a nightmare. It took so long to do the remediation – it wasn’t user-friendly… Staff loves using Equidox … It’s so much faster than Adobe … Our return on investment was recouped very quickly.” — Robin Greco, Deputy City Clerk, Oakland Park, Florida.

These testimonials reinforce the core messaging: simpler workflows, faster remediation, broader adoption across teams, and real ROI.

Choose the right tool for the job

Adobe Acrobat is powerful and familiar—but when your organization’s priorities include scalability, efficiency, ease of use for non-experts, automation, and team-friendly licensing, Equidox offers a purpose-built alternative. For teams focused on cutting PDF backlogs, streamlining remediation, and achieving WCAG and Section 508 compliance, Equidox offers a practical alternative to Acrobat.