Convert twenty legacy Word training guides into accessible, tagged PDFs that meet basic screen-reader requirements and…
Open the PDF file you want to tag in Adobe Acrobat.
Select the Tools icon from the toolbar.
Choose Prepare for accessibility from the list of tools.
Click Automatically tag PDF to generate accessibility tags.
Best practiceAfter auto-tagging, review the tags using the Accessibility tags panel to ensure the structure matches the document content, as automated tagging may not always be perfect.
You can quickly access the Accessibility tags panel by right-clicking the Navigation pane and enabling it for easier tag review.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
The best way to get an accessible PDF is to fix the original Word document first. Make sure you use proper heading styles, add alt text to images, and create tables correctly in Word. When you export from Word, the PDF will already have much of the needed accessibility information.
PDF/UA is a specific standard for PDF documents, focusing on how the PDF itself is structured for accessibility. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is a broader set of guidelines for all digital content, not just PDFs. Many regulated tasks require meeting both standards to ensure full accessibility across different technologies.
Tagging is the most important part of making a PDF accessible because it adds a hidden structure to the document. This structure tells assistive technologies, like screen readers, what each part of the document is (e.g., a heading, a paragraph, a list). Without tags, a screen reader cannot understand the content or read it in the correct order.
Yes, you can make a scanned PDF accessible, but it might take more effort. Scanned PDFs are often just images of text, so Acrobat needs to first recognize the text (OCR). After that, you can use the auto-tagging feature. However, you will likely need to do more manual checks and fixes for reading order and other elements.
The Accessibility Checker is a tool in Acrobat that scans your PDF for common accessibility problems. It gives you a report of issues like missing alt text, incorrect reading order, or problems with headings. This helps you find and fix things that might make your PDF hard for some users to access, guiding you to a more compliant document.