Creating accessible PDFs (2024)

Note:

The Full Check tool is renamed to Accessibility Check in Acrobat (May 2020 release)

1. Consider accessibility before you convert a documentto PDF.

2. Add fillable form fields and descriptions, and set the tab order.

3. Add other accessibility features to the PDF.

4. Tag the PDF.

5. Evaluate the PDF and repair tagging problems.

Whenever possible, think about accessibilitywhen you create the source files in an authoring application, suchas a word-processing or page-layout application.

Typical tasksin the authoring application include adding alternate text to graphics,optimizing tables, and applying paragraph styles or other document-structurefeatures that can be converted to tags. For more information, see Creatinga tagged PDF from an authoring application.

If your PDF includes form fields, select All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Automatically tag form fieldsto detect form fields and make them interactive (fillable).

Use the Forms tools to create fillable form fields, such as buttons, checkboxes, pop-up menus, and text boxes. When you create a field, type a description in the Tooltip box in the Properties dialog box. Screen readers read this text aloud to the user. For more information, view Create form fields.

Note:

You can also use the Fix reading rrder tool in Acrobat Pro to add descriptions to form fields.

In Acrobat Pro, this stage includes setting the document language, making sure that security settings don’t interfere with screen readers, creating accessible links, and adding bookmarks. For more information, see Set the document language, Prevent security settings from interfering with screen readers, Add accessible links, and About bookmarks.

In Acrobat Standard, this stage includes setting the document language, making sure that security settings don’t interfere with screen readers, and adding bookmarks. For more information, see Set the document language, Prevent security settings from interfering with screen readers, and About bookmarks.

Improve the accessibility of PDFs by adding tags in Acrobat. If a PDF doesn’t contain tags, Acrobat attempts to tag it automatically when users read or reflow it, and the results may be disappointing. 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.

Tag a document when converting it to PDF from an authoring application for best results. Examples of these applications include Adobe FrameMaker®, Adobe InDesign®,Microsoft Word, or OpenOffice Writer. If you don't have access to an authoring application that can generate a tagged PDF, you can tag a PDF any time by using Acrobat.

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. The logical structure tree 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 alternate text (when available) in the file.

To tag a PDF in Acrobat, choose All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Automatically tag a PDF. This command works on any untagged PDF, such as one created with Adobe PDF Printer. Acrobat analyzes the content of the PDF to interpret the individual page elements, their hierarchical structure, and the intended reading order of each page. Then, it builds a tag tree that reflects that information. It also creates tags for any links, cross-references, and bookmarks you added to the document in Acrobat.

The Automatically tag a PDF command adequately tags most standard layouts. However, it cannot always correctly interpret complex page elements' structure and reading order. These elements include closely spaced columns, irregular text alignment, non-fillable form fields, and tables that don’t have borders. Tagging these pages using the Automatically tag a PDF command can result in improperly combined elements or out-of-sequence tags. These issues cause reading order problems in the PDF.

Note:

You can add a watermark to a tagged PDF withoutadding it to the tag tree. Not having a watermark appear in thetag tree is helpful for people who are using screen readers, becausethey won’t hear the watermark read as a document content.

Thebest way to add a watermark that doesn’t interfere with screen readersis to insert an untagged PDF of the watermark into a tagged PDF.

Once you have a tagged PDF, evaluate the document for reading order problems, tagging, and accessibility errors, and then repair them as needed.

Irrespective of the method used to tag the PDF, use Acrobat to touch up the tagging and reading order for complex page layouts or unusual page elements. For example, the Automatically tag a PDFcommand 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 elements as figures. Similarly, this command may erroneously tag graphical characters within the text, such as drop caps, as figures instead of including them in the tag that represents 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, the application generates an error report after it completes the tagging process. Use this report as a guide to repairing tagging problems. You can identify other tagging, reading order, and accessibility problems for any PDF by using the Full Check/Accessibility check tool or the Fix reading ordertool. For more information, view Check accessibility with Full Check/Accessibility Check and Check and correct reading order.

1. Do one of the following:

   • In Acrobat, choose the hamburgerMenu(Windows) or theFilemenu (macOS) > Create > PDF From Web Page, enter the web page address, and then select Settings.

2. In the General tab, select Create PDF Tags, and then select OK.

3. Specify any other options as appropriate, and then select Create.

Usually, you create tagged PDFs from within an authoring application, such as Adobe FrameMaker®, Adobe InDesign, or Microsoft Word. This way, tags are added more effectively than in Acrobat.

PDFMaker provides conversion settings that let you create tagged PDFs in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.

For more information about creating accessible PDFs, see www.adobe.com/accessibility.

For more information, see the documentation for your authoring application.

You can combine multiple files from different applications in one operation to create a single PDF. For example, you can combine word-processing files with slide presentations, spreadsheets, and web pages. Select the hamburgerMenu(Windows) or theFilemenu (macOS) > Create > Combine files into a single PDF.

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. Use Acrobat Proto create an accessible PDF from multiple documents.

When you combine multiple PDFs into one tagged PDF, it's a good idea to retag the combined document. 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, are 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 untagged, add tags to the combined PDF after inserting, replacing, and deleting pages.

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. This orderoccurs even if you insert the new pages at the beginning or themiddle of the document.

• When you replace pages in a PDF, Acrobat adds the tags (ifany) from the incoming pages to the end of the tag tree. This orderoccurs even if you replace pages at the beginning or the middleof the document. Acrobat retains the tags (if any) for the replacedpages.

• 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 possibly don't reach the tags for an inserted page until the end of the tree. To fix this problem, use Acrobat Proto rearrange the tag tree. Place large groups of tags in the same reading order as the pages. To avoid this step, plan on inserting 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 content, add the content PDF to the title page PDF, even though the content document is larger. This approach places the tags for the content after the tags for the title page. It’s unnecessary to rearrange the tags later in Acrobat Pro.

The tags 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 redundant tags increase the file size of the document, slow down screen readers, and can cause screen readers to give confusing results. For best results, make tagging the last step in the conversion process. Use Acrobat Proto delete the tags of deleted pages from the tag tree.

For more information, view Create merged PDFs.

Formstend to have relatively complex layouts compared to documents thathave a simple, single-column structure. The success that an applicationhas in analyzing and tagging a form depends largely on the originalformatting and layout of a document, and the types of fields thatit uses.

When you design a form, include headings, instructions,and fields in which users are to enter data. At a minimum, giveeach field a label. Also add special instructions for fields thatneed them. Use graphics tools to draw lines and boxes. Don’t usecharacters, such as underscores and vertical bars, because thesetext characters can confuse screen readers.

Adding descriptionsto form fields enables screen readers to identify the fields to users.Users hear the description read aloud when they tab to the field.Write descriptions that are terse but complete. For example, thedescription “First name” is appropriate for a first-name field.Don’t use instructions (such as “Enter first name”) as a description.

• Tab to move focus to the next field

• Shift+Tab to move focus to the previous field

• Spacebar to select options

• Arrow keys to select options or list items

More like this

• Accessibility features
• Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
• Creating accessible PDFs
• Enhance document accessibility with cloud-based auto-tagging
  
• Reading Order tool for PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
• Editing document structure with the Content and Tags panels(Acrobat Pro)
• Keys for accessibility (Acrobat Pro)