Look at the pattern across our legacy guides and identify the recurring accessibility faults. Recommend a one-step cha…
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.
The most important step for PDF accessibility is tagging. Tags provide a hidden structure to the PDF, telling assistive technologies like screen readers what each part of the document is (e.g., a heading, a paragraph, an image). Without proper tags, a screen reader cannot correctly interpret the content, making the PDF unusable for someone with a visual impairment.
Yes, you can still make a scanned PDF accessible, but it requires more effort. Scanned PDFs often lack any text layer or tags. You would first need to run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to make the text selectable. After that, you can use Acrobat's 'Automatically tag PDF' feature. However, you will likely need to spend more time manually verifying and correcting the tags, reading order, and adding alt text, as automation might struggle with complex scanned layouts.
| Standard | Focus | Scope | Primary Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| PDF/UA | Specific to PDF documents | Defines technical requirements for a PDF's internal structure (tags, metadata) | Ensuring PDF files themselves are technically accessible |
| WCAG | Technology-agnostic (web content, software, documents) | Provides broad guidelines for making content perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust | General regulatory compliance for digital content accessibility |
Fixing accessibility problems in the source document (e.g., Microsoft Word, InDesign) saves a lot of time and effort. When you create an accessible source document with proper heading styles, alt text, and list formatting, these elements are often carried over correctly when you export to PDF. Remediating an untagged PDF after it's created is a much more time-consuming process, as you have to manually add or correct structural information that should have been there from the start. It's more efficient to 'build in' accessibility rather than 'bolt on' later.