Accessible PDF Development

"The freeware program PAC provides a fast way to test the accessibility of PDF files. PAC supports both experts as well as end users conducting accessibility evaluations."

"CommonLook PDF GlobalAccess can streamline the accessibility evaluation and repair of PDF files. It provides benefits over using Adobe Acrobat Professional or other tools to create, evaluate, and, if necessary, repair tagged PDFs. This article highlights some strengths and possible shortcomings of PDF GlobalAccess. For a tutorial on how to use this program, see the user guide on the CommonLook site."

"As with the Flash techniques for WCAG 2.0 and techniques for all other technologies, the PDF techniques are presented as examples which the WCAG Working Group viewed as sufficient to meet WCAG 2.0 success criteria, not as the only way to meet any given success criteria. Authors may discover a new way to address a success criteria, in a way not yet covered in the existing techniques, and be able to demonstrate why it is sufficient. The techniques offer a collection of strategies that have […]

"A: PDF/UA indicates that running headers and footers should be made artifacts. Generally speaking, the first occurrence of identical headers or footers should be tagged but the others not, as they interfere with reading. However, many documents have unique headers and footers and may contain different section or page numbers that do not match the actual page numbers. In these cases this information is a “must-have” for users and should be tagged and included in the appropriate […]

"The new features of Acrobat XI are intended to make creating PDF documents both easier and more automatic. The Make Accessible action wizard walks users through a number of steps, like running optical character recognition and prompting for alternate text on images, and then tests the final product. This makes the process for editing and testing for PDF accessibility a fast, uniform process for authors of all skill levels. The built-in accessibility checker has also been improved, […]

"Although you can create accessible PDF files in several programs, Adobe Acrobat Professional is required to evaluate, repair, and enhance the accessibility of existing PDF files."

"Compared to HTML, PDF forms have some inherent accessibility limitations. There is no real way to associate the visible text label with the form field, but there is a way to provide a text description that will be read to a screen reader while navigating through the PDF. In addition to the accessibility principles outlined in the previous page of this article, the following four steps are required to ensure the accessibility of a PDF form."

"Deciding whether to remediate PDFs or to migrate them to HTML is one such fork in the road. That’s why in this article I’ll examine five key considerations that will help you determine the best path to WCAG 2.0 AA conformance and, ultimately, web accessibility for all."