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We’ve compiled a list of PDF accessibility FAQs to help explain what it is and what it should look like and how to achieve compliance.
1. What is PDF accessibility?
If a PDF is accessible, it means that your PDF document is readable and usable for every person in your target audience, including those who use assistive technology (such as screen readers or connected Braille displays) to read digital content.
2. What is PDF remediation?
PDF remediation is the process of making PDF documents accessible to people with disabilities. Remediate PDFs by identifying and labeling (or “tagging”) elements such as text, headings, images, lists, and tables. Each element must be able to be understood by assistive technology used by people with disabilities.
3. How do I avoid digital accessibility lawsuits?
There were over 4,000 digital accessibility lawsuits in the U.S. in 2022. The best way to avoid lawsuits is to ensure all of your digital content, websites, document files, and applications are accessible and usable for everyone. No one should be prevented from interacting with any of your digital content or solutions because they are inaccessible.
Plan for digital accessibility when content is created. This is the ideal way to address these issues. However, even if you already have inaccessible content, you can still protect your reputation, include everyone, and avoid lawsuits by addressing those accessibility issues now.
Here is a list of action items for addressing digital accessibility:
- Write and enforce an accessibility policy within your organization
- Post an accessibility statement on your website and keep to it.
- Test your website and check all your online files to ensure they are accessible.
- Address and correct any accessibility barriers in this order: most used pages or files, easiest fixes, and then correct the rest. That will mean you’ve addressed the most used content and fixed the largest amount of content as quickly as possible.
You can find a more detailed plan for PDF accessibility in this article.
4. What guidelines or standards should you use to check PDF accessibility compliance?
There are a number of guidelines and standards used to measure digital accessibility. Some, such as Section 508, are part of U.S. legislation. Others, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (or, WCAG), are guidelines developed by a worldwide community of accessibility experts to define how digital accessibility should be evaluated. Many laws worldwide refer to WCAG guidelines, WCAG is also mentioned in federal case law and some state laws in the United States, but they are not federal legislation per se. There are also other laws and standards worldwide such as EN 301 549, the accessibility requirements for information and communication technology in the European Union (EU). You can learn more about digital accessibility legislation in the Equidox Resource Library.
5. How do you make PDFs accessible?
The best way to make a PDF accessible is to ensure the source document for the PDF file is accessible first. Many document creation applications such as Microsoft Office and Google Suite have accessibility features built in. However, starting with an accessible source file doesn’t guarantee the converted PDF file is an accessible PDF. You must still review the elements of the PDF and ensure they are properly tagged with digital labels so that assistive technology can read them. Many elements that began as accessible may no longer be so. You will need to check the PDF using both an automated checker and manual checks.
Tag every element of the PDF correctly in order for an assistive technology user to use it. This includes text, headings, lists, tables, links, and images. All images must either be tagged with a text alternative description, called alt text,(including charts, graphs, maps, and infographics) or be “artifacted,” meaning it is tagged for the assistive technology to skip that element (for example, decorative scrolling or repetitive logos).
6. Can PDF accessibility be automated?
Many solutions claim to automate PDF accessibility for any document. Some are referred to as “auto-taggers.” Many of these tools do not fully remediate (or, make accessible) all elements of the PDF. They simply identify as many elements as they can and then you must review and fix any errors. Things such as reading order and alt text for images must be manually checked.
Equidox AI is a product that DOES fully automate PDF accessibility for templated PDFs in large quantities. Equidox carefully trains the machine learning- and computer vision-powered solution on each batch of unique documents to fully and accurately remediate large quantities of PDFs automatically with no need for manual review. Learn more about Equidox AI here.
If you are interested in further information beyond these PDF accessibility FAQs, download our free Equidox Guide to PDF Accessibility.
Tammy Albee
Tammy Albee | Director of Marketing | Equidox Tammy joined Equidox after four years of experience working at the National Federation of the Blind. She firmly maintains that accessibility is about reaching everyone, regardless of ability, and boosting your market share in the process. "Nobody should be barred from accessing information. It's what drives our modern society."