11/29/2022 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 11/29/2022 20:56
Accessibility involves two key issues - how users with disabilities access electronic information and how web content designers and developers enable web pages to function with assistive devices used by individuals with disabilities.
For business owners and publishers, it's essential to deliver outstanding digital experiences to everyone. That means supporting the creation of rich, engaging web pages and content that are readable and accessible to all users. And that's why PDF accessibility matters. By adjusting and applying different settings, you can ensure no one has difficulty viewing and enjoying your content.
PDF accessibility is important for a range of reasons, from broad issues of equality and legality to basic aims of inclusivity and wanting your content to be available to anyone. Business owners and digital publishers need to know why and how to enable it.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates there's 43 million people worldwide who are blind. An inaccessible document would be like looking at a blank page. WHO also estimates that 295 million people have low vision, meaning an inaccessible document could appear blurry. The organization estimates 780 million around the globe have dyslexia - inaccessible content is like trying to read a page written in code. Untagged PDFs can be difficult or even impossible to read with a screen reader, and of the 2.5 trillion PDFs worldwide, more than 90 percent are untagged.
PDF file format accessibility features combined with Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader allow universal access to documents. A digital document or web application is considered accessible if it meets certain technical criteria and can be used by people with disabilities. This includes access for people who are mobility impaired, blind, low vision, deaf, hard of hearing, or who have cognitive impairments.
Accessibility features in Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader and in the Portable Document Format (PDF) make it easier for people with disabilities to use PDF documents and forms, with and without the aid of assistive technology software and devices such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, text-to-speech software, speech recognition software, alternative input devices, Braille embossers, and refreshable Braille displays.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (ISO/IEC 40500:2012) and the PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1) standards cover a wide range of recommendations for making content more accessible to people with disabilities. One benefit of following these guidelines is that content becomes more readable for all users.
Accessible PDFs include but are not limited to the following characteristics:
When you're looking to create an accessible PDF, there are some important features you should have in a document tool, including:
Accessibility features in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Acrobat Reader fall into two broad categories: features that make the reading of PDF documents more accessible, and features that help create accessible PDF documents. To create accessible PDF documents, you must use Acrobat Pro.
All versions of Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Standard, and Acrobat Pro provide support for the accessible reading of PDF files by persons with disabilities. Though Acrobat Standard provides some functionality for making existing PDFs accessible, Acrobat Pro must be used to perform most tasks - such as editing reading order or editing document structure tags - that are necessary to make PDF documents and forms accessible.
To create accessible PDFs you need to have the right tools. Acrobat makes it easy to create accessible PDFs and check the accessibility of existing PDFs. Here we'll show you how to make a PDF more accessible using Acrobat Pro.
Using Adobe Acrobat, you can make a PDF accessible with these simple steps.
A good way to check the accessibility of a document is to use tools that your readers will use. Even if you do not have access to those tools, Adobe Acrobat provides an automated way to check the accessibility of a PDF file. The Full Check/Accessibility Check feature in Acrobat checks a PDF for many of the characteristics of accessible PDFs. You can choose which accessibility problems to look for and how you want the results reported.
Because the Full Check/Accessibility Check feature cannot distinguish between essential and nonessential content types, some issues it reports don't affect readability. It's a good idea to review all issues to determine which ones require correction.
The report displays one of the following statuses for each rule check:
To fix a failed check after running Full Check/Accessibility Check, right-click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Mac OS) the item in the Accessibility Checker panel. Choose one of the following options from the context menu:
Now that we've learned how to check and fix accessibility issues, let's dive into the top things to consider when creating any PDF to make sure it's accessible.
These stages are presented in an order that suits most scenarios. However, you can perform tasks in a different order or iterate between some of the stages. In all cases, identify the purpose of the document and then determine the appropriate workflow.
A PDF that you create from a web page is only as accessible as the HTML source that it is based on. For example, if the web page relies on tables for its layout design, the HTML code for the table may not flow in the same logical reading order as a tagged PDF would require, even though the HTML code is sufficiently structured to display all the elements correctly in a browser.
Depending on the complexity of the web page, you can do extensive repairs in Acrobat Pro by using the Reading Order tool or editing the tag tree in Acrobat. To produce the most accessible PDFs from web pages that you create, first establish a logical reading order in their HTML code. For best results, employ the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that are published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Adobe offers various tools for the creation of accessible PDF forms.
Acrobat Pro, Acrobat Standard: Use one of these applications to open untagged or tagged PDF forms (except PDF forms that are created from Adobe Designer) to add fillable form fields, such as text boxes, check boxes, and buttons. Then use the application's other tools to make the form accessible. Add descriptions to form fields, tag untagged forms, set the set tab order, manipulate tags, and perform the other PDF accessibility tasks.
Authoring applications: Most authoring applications that you can use to design forms don't retain their fillable form fields when you convert the files to PDF. Use the forms tools in Acrobat Pro to add fillable form fields. Moreover, if you tag the form during conversion to PDF, the authoring application can generate inappropriate tags for the text labels of the form fields.
With Adobe Acrobat, you have a full set of digital document features and tools to help create, edit, publish, and support accessible PDFs, such as: