PDF accessibility - how to check

We've been looking at WCAG 2.1 and how to ensure that your content meets these important guidelines. We haven't finished yet but I'd like to branch off on a little tangent and take a more detailed look at PDFs and accessibility.

This is quite complicated compared to using Microsoft Office and it requires some specialist software. Most people are familiar with Adobe Acrobat - the PDF reader. For accessibility work, you really need the Pro version of Acrobat. It comes as part of Adobe Creative Cloud or you can buy a single product licence. 

Accessibility Tools

Accessibility tools are not turned on by default, so you'll need to go into your tools tab, scroll down and add Accessibility to your tools pane. This will give you an accessibility checker, which will analyse your PDF and identify any errors and warnings. 

Errors usually include things like missing language, title, alt text and tags. Warnings are usually things that need manual checking, such as colour contrast.

Video

This short 2-minute video will talk you through the process of turning on accessibility tools and doing a check.



Location: England, UK

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