A researcher notified us that the gallery text and catalog essays must be accessible for a program next week. I’m new …
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 specific standard for PDF documents, focusing on how a PDF file itself is structured to be accessible. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is a broader set of guidelines for all digital content, not just PDFs. Many regulated documents need to meet both standards to ensure they are accessible across different technologies and platforms.
Fixing accessibility in the original document, such as a Microsoft Word file, saves a lot of time and effort. When you export an accessible Word document to PDF, many accessibility features like tags and reading order are kept. This means you will have less work to do in Acrobat, making the process much faster and more reliable.
Reading order is the sequence in which content (text, images, tables) is read by assistive technologies like screen readers. It matters greatly because if the reading order is wrong, a screen reader might jump around the page, making the document confusing or impossible to understand for a user who cannot see the visual layout. Correct reading order ensures a logical flow of information.
Yes, if you have many untagged PDFs, using the PDF Accessibility Auto-Tag API can significantly speed up the process. This API, powered by Sensei, can automatically tag headings, tables, lists, and paragraphs, even in scanned PDFs. It also identifies the language. This allows you to process documents in bulk, which is much faster than manually remediating each one. You can then use the Accessibility Checker API (beta) to verify the results.