Across multiple releases, accessibility tickets linger because developers see scans as noisy. Diagnose how my reports …
Open the PDF document you want to check in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Go to the Tools tab at the top of the window.
Scroll through the available tools and select Accessibility to add it to your Tools pane if it is not already present.
Best practiceIf you do not see the Accessibility tool, you can add it from the Tools tab for easier future access.
In the right-hand pane, click Check Accessibility.
In the Accessibility Checker Options dialog, select the desired checking options or leave the defaults.
Click Start Checking to begin the accessibility check.
Review the results in the left-hand Accessibility Checker panel, which will display any detected accessibility issues.
Best practiceRight-clicking on an issue in the results panel provides options for fixing or learning more about the problem.
You can double-click any issue in the Accessibility Checker panel to jump directly to the problem area in your PDF.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
| Feature | PDF/UA | WCAG |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Specific to PDF documents, ensuring technical accessibility. | General guidelines for all web content, technology-agnostic. |
| Purpose | Ensures a PDF's internal structure is accessible. | Ensures content is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for users. |
| Requirement | Often needed for specific regulated work involving PDFs. | A broader standard applied to many digital platforms. |
It is much better to fix accessibility problems in the original document, like a Word file, before you save it as a PDF. When you fix the source, all new PDFs made from it will be accessible. This saves a lot of time and effort compared to fixing each PDF separately. Fixing the source is more efficient and prevents future problems.
Tagging means adding hidden labels to a PDF that describe its structure. These tags tell screen readers and other tools what parts are headings, paragraphs, lists, or images. This is very important because without tags, assistive technologies cannot understand the document's layout or read it correctly to users with disabilities.
Yes, you can use the PDF Accessibility Auto-Tag API to process many untagged PDFs at once. This API uses smart technology to add tags for headings, tables, lists, and paragraphs. It can even work with scanned PDFs. This can save a lot of time when you need to make a large number of documents accessible.