Adobe PDFs

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See our Equidox page for remediation of Adobe PDFs using this tool.

Prepare for accessibility tool in Adobe Acrobat

• In Adobe Acrobat there are tools available to do things like Scan and OCR, Edit a PDF, and Prepare for accessibility located at the top left.

• Click the Prepare for accessibility tool in order to access all the accessibility options.

• Click the Check for accessibility option to run the report.

• Use the Add alternate text option to add alt text to images.

• Use the Fix reading order tool to change the reading order and to tag the document.

• Use Automatically tag PDF if it is not already tagged

The Check for accessibility report checks

• Color and Contrast –provides options to change colors for higher contrast

• Fonts & Text – ensures fonts are properly mapped to Unicode for text-to-speech

• Media and Illustrations –provides the ability to add alternative text or identify as ‘just decoration’ (i.e. provides no meaning)

• Tables – helps to avoid missing column headers and with merging cells

• Document structure & properties such as tags, titles, language, reading order

• Forms – verified form fields have tool tips, descriptions, tab order

Tips

• Try to fix issues in the original document and then convert to PDF, if necessary.

• Do not convert to PDF unless there is a reason not to post another type of document.

• If there are scanned images in the document, go to the Adobe tools menu and choose Scan & OCR.

  • Choose ‘In this file’, click the ‘Recognize Text’ button.

  • Go to the ‘Fix reading order’ tool to confirm everything has been tagged. If it hasn’t, then tag the content by drawing a box around the content  and choosing the type from the Fix reading order dialogue box . View the Adobe video on tagging for more information.

• Run the Check for accessibility option first. Do not auto-tag unless the accessibility checker indicates the document is not tagged. The document can also manually be tagged with the Fix reading order tool.

• Check the Document Title is correct and meaningful. Look at the top tab where the document is open to view the title quickly.

  • Right-click the Accessibility Report error and choose Fix if there is an error.

  • The title is also listed under Document properties, which is also located under the hamburger Menu at the top left. Look at the Description field on the first tab.

• Use the Add alternate text tool or right click Accessibility Report issues and click Fix.

• Right-click on issues and choose Explain if there is no Fix option. Adobe Documentation will sometimes provide possible steps to fix the issue.

• Review the manual check for Logical Reading Order. Right-click and select Pass if it passes validation.

  • Check Logical Reading Order by using the Fix reading order option where it shows the tags with numbers.

  • Toggle between viewing the Page content order (shows the tags with numbers so the order can be seen) or the Structure types (shows the types of tags the content is tagged as)

• Review the manual check for Color Contrast. Right click and select Pass if it passes. The Edit a PDF tool under All tools may need to be used to fix text color.

• If there are issues resolving problems and the document is not a signed document, try using Convert to Word under the Convert drop down. Verify the document looks the same and make the needed accessibility changes. Then re-convert to PDF before running the Accessibility checker.

• Type ‘Adobe Accessibility’ and the issue/problem into Google and see what suggestions are returned.

• Tagged Annotations - Failed (Find untagged elements)

  • You can search and tag these things: Artifacts, Comments, Links, Annotations, Content, OCR Suspects

  • On the Accessibility Tags panel, click the 3 dot menu at the top right (Options). Click Find. Choose a type from the drop down and when an instance is found, click Tag Element.

  • View the Order panel and click the Fix reading order option (choose to view the order radio button). Drag tags around in the Order panel to correct order issues.

Adobe PDF Resources:

• Adobe Video Tutorials Series: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/document-cloud-learn/acrobat-learning/accessibility-tutorials/accessibility-overview

  • The What and Why of accessible PDF files

  • Set up your workspace

  • Create and accessible PDF from Word

  • Create and accessible PDF in Acrobat

  • The basics of tagging

  • Scanned documents

  • Create accessible forms

  • Complex lists

  • Complex tables

  • Make Accessible guided action

• Adobe Accessibility Guides: https://www.section508.gov/create/pdfs/

Learning Courses:

LinkedIn Learning (search in KLPM for this course)

• Creating Accessible PDFs