I want a practical accessibility report that product and engineering will accept as part of release gates. Propose a c…
Open the PDF document you want to check for accessibility.
Click the Tools tab at the top of the Acrobat window.
Scroll through the list and select Accessibility to add the Accessibility tools to your workspace if they are not already visible.
Best practiceIf you do not see the Accessibility tools, you may need to add them from the Tools pane as they are not shown by default.
In the Accessibility tools pane, click Full Check.
In the Accessibility Checker Options dialog, review the settings and click Start Checking.
Best practiceFor a thorough check, ensure all checkboxes are selected before starting the check.
Review the results displayed in the Accessibility Checker panel on the left side of the screen.
You can right-click in the Navigation Pane to show the Accessibility tags panel for more detailed tag inspection.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
PDF/UA is a standard specifically for PDF documents, focusing on how the PDF itself is structured for accessibility. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is a broader, technology-agnostic standard for all web content, including PDFs. Many regulated tasks require you to meet both standards, as WCAG provides general guidelines while PDF/UA gives specific PDF requirements.
It is much faster and easier to make a document accessible in its original program, like Microsoft Word. If you create an accessible Word document, then export it to PDF, many accessibility features transfer automatically. This means less work fixing the PDF afterward, which can be very time-consuming, especially for untagged documents.
Yes, you can. Acrobat's auto-tagging feature works for scanned PDFs too. It uses smart technology to identify headings, paragraphs, and other elements, even in images of text. However, you will still need to manually check and correct things like reading order and add alt text to any images in the scan to ensure full accessibility.
Reading order is the sequence in which a screen reader or other assistive technology reads the content on a page. It matters because if the reading order is wrong, a visually impaired user might hear text in a confusing or illogical sequence, making the document hard to understand. You need to check and fix it to ensure a smooth and logical flow of information.