I’ve been away from front-end design trends and need to refresh my knowledge of modern layout techniques and accessibi…
Open your PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Go to the Tools tab and add the Accessibility tools to your workspace if they are not already present.
Best practiceYou can customize your workspace to keep accessibility tools handy for repeated use.
Select Accessibility from the Tools pane, then run Full Check to identify issues.
Review the Accessibility Checker panel's results and expand each issue to see details.
Right-click on an issue and choose Fix if available, or select Explain for guidance.
NoteSome issues can be fixed automatically, but many require manual remediation.
For reading order issues, open the Reading Order panel from the left Navigation pane and drag items to the correct sequence.
Best practiceUse the Reading Order panel to visually confirm and adjust the logical reading sequence for screen readers.
For tag issues, right-click in the Navigation pane and enable the Tags panel, then edit, add, or rearrange tags as needed.
Best practiceRenaming tags with F2 can help clarify structure for assistive technologies.
To add or edit alternative text, right-click images in the Tags panel and choose Properties, then enter descriptive alt text.
NoteAlt text is essential for non-text content to be accessible to screen readers.
For headings, ensure heading tags (such as H1, H2) are applied to section titles in the Tags panel; right-click and change tag type if needed.
After making changes, rerun the Full Check to confirm all issues are resolved.
Best practiceIteratively check and fix until no critical issues remain.
You can right-click on specific accessibility checker results to get explanations or attempt automatic fixes directly from the panel.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
| Standard | Focus | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| PDF/UA | Specific rules for PDF documents to be accessible. | Only PDF files |
| WCAG | General rules for making all web content accessible. | Any technology (websites, documents, apps) |
It is always best to make your original document (like a Word file) accessible before you save it as a PDF. If the source is accessible, the PDF export will also be accessible. This saves a lot of time and effort compared to fixing an untagged PDF after it's already made, which can be very time-consuming.
The reading order is the path a screen reader follows through the content of a PDF. It matters because if the reading order is wrong, people using screen readers will hear the information in a confusing or incorrect sequence, making the document hard to understand.
Yes, even scanned PDFs can be made accessible. Adobe's API, powered by Sensei, can automatically tag scanned PDFs, identifying headings, tables, lists, and paragraphs. However, you will still need to manually verify the tags, reading order, and add alt text for images, as automation may not be perfect for complex scans.