PDFs

  • Last modification date Updated On January 8, 2024

Related guidelines:1 WCAG 1.1.1, WCAG 1.3.1, WCAG 1.3.2. WCAG 1.3.3, WCAG 1.4.1, WCAG 1.4.3, WCAG 1.4.5, WCAG 2.1.1, WCAG 2.1.2, WCAG 2.4.2, WCAG 2.4.3, WCAG 2.4.4, WCAG 2.4.6, WCAG 3.1.1

Many instructors at Cornell use PDFs in their courses. Unfortunately, PDFs can be time-consuming to make accessible and require specific software and training to do so. For this reason, you may be advised by several departments and experts to avoid using PDFs when possible.

But, why are PDFs so time-consuming to fix?

PDF Tags

There are a variety of accessibility issues to consider when remediating PDFs, but the biggest challenge lies in making PDFs accessible to screen readers.2 

Semantic structure and formatting – such as adding headings, lists, tables, etc. – play a large role in how others will read and understand the document, so the screen reader needs to be able to properly convey these elements to the learners who rely on them. 

With PDFs, this is done by adding what is called a PDF tag to each individual heading, list, paragraph, table cell, etc., and the responsibility is on the creator or the person remediating the PDF to ensure they are added correctly. Sometimes PDF tags are automatically generated, but they are often inaccurate to some degree and require fixing anyway. These manual fixes are typically done with Adobe Acrobat Pro (the paid version) or software specifically designed for remediating PDFs (e.g., Equidox).

How long does it take to remediate a PDF?

How time-consuming remediating a PDF will be (including adding and fixing PDF tags) depends on numerous factors, such as:

  • Creation Method
    • PDFs created from Word Documents may be easier and faster to remediate compared to those created from scanned books or papers.
  • Age and Quality
    • Older PDFs and poor-quality scans will take longer to remediate.
  • Length
    • PDFs with only a few pages will be faster to fix than longer PDFs, such as a chapter from a book.
  • Layout Complexity
    • If the PDF was designed with multiple columns (e.g., a newsletter) or an interactive form, it will be more complicated to fix than one with a standard layout.
  • Images
    • The more graphs, charts, and other informational images there are, the more time you will need to fix the PDF, because each item requires a long text description written by a subject matter expert to explain the material’s content.
  • Tool Used
    • There are different tools you can use to remediate PDFs; some tools are more robust than others, and/or may have a more intuitive interface for you. For example, many people are already familiar with Adobe products compared to Equidox; so, it may be faster for some to learn to use Adobe Acrobat Pro’s accessibility features. On the other hand, Equidox has some features for fixing PDF Tags not found in Adobe Acrobat Pro.
  • Remediator’s Level of Experience
    • The more practice the remediator has in fixing PDFs, the more proficient they will be in understanding the guidelines and using the software to ensure an accessible document. 

First Steps to Take with PDFs

When considering the first steps to take toward making your PDFs more accessible, it’s helpful to first ask yourself a few questions about the resource itself, so you know how to best proceed.

Steps on how to proceed based on if the PDF is essential or not
  1. First, determine whether the PDF is an essential resource.
    • Ask yourself, “Does this PDF align with the learning outcomes or goals of the lesson?” and “Is the PDF a newer resource with the most updated information or is it possibly outdated and should be updated with a more current resource?”
    • If you determine the PDF is not essential, consider removing it from the course. 
  2. If the PDF is essential to the course, ask yourself the following questions before attempting remediation:
    • Is there already an accessible version of this document and/or another, accessible way to deliver this information? To find out, search the library and the web to see if the resource can be found in a different format; e.g., a website, an ebook, or a PDF that has already been made accessible.
      • Alternatively, can you swap for a different, accessible article on the same topic?
    • If you created the PDF from a Word document or a Google doc, can you provide a link to that original document instead? Note that you can password-protect a Word document, and Microsoft has features that make it easier to fix accessibility issues in its Office suite as opposed to in PDFs.
      • If you have already made a Word document accessible, you can save it as a PDF in a way that retains most of those accessibility changes that you made. For information on how to do this, review Save a Word document as an Accessible PDF.
      • However, should you take this option, we still recommend doing at minimum a brief accessibility review of the final PDF. Pay close attention to the accuracy of the PDF tags because the headings may be marked as paragraphs in the tags. Since headings and other semantic formatting play a major role in the reading and comprehension, it is important to ensure we are conveying those headings to those who use screen readers using accurate PDF tags.
      • A quick but important note: Try to avoid using PDFs created from Google Docs when possible. Unfortunately, PDFs created from Google Docs will likely not retain any accessibility changes you made. This means a full review and remediation is required of PDFs created from Google Docs. 
  1. Can you create a Canvas page with this information instead? Canvas has an internal accessibility checker, with the added benefit that you can reuse a Canvas page from a previous semester. Here’s how: Copy a canvas page from one course to another.
  2. If no other option exists, we recommend evaluating the complexity of the document to determine the best remediation strategy.
    • Option 1: If you’re working with a simple PDF, you can save or export the PDF as a Word Document and then remediate it in Microsoft Word.
      • A simple PDF is:
        • Short, roughly 5 pages and under.
        • Contains either no images or only a few images.
        • High quality (not scanned from a book or piece of paper). 
        • In a standard layout (e.g., no columns or forms).
      • Once you have saved or exported the PDF as a Word document, you can then fix the accessibility issues in Word, and provide that Word document to learners in place of the PDF. Note that you can restrict editing in a Word document if you are concerned about learners changing the content. Here’s how: Password-protect a Word document.
      • Tip: If the PDF wasn’t originally created from a Word document, then the act of saving the PDF as a Word document may distort the PDF’s original formatting, which can be time-consuming to fix. The longer and/or more complicated the PDF, the more time you will need to create an accessible document using this method. This is why we only recommend the above strategy for simple PDFs.
    • Option 2: For complex PDFs, we recommend using Adobe Acrobat Pro, Equidox, and/or another tool to remediate.

Fixing Common Issues

Two tools for fixing PDFs are available as needed for Cornell faculty and staff via IT@Cornell: Adobe Acrobat Pro Licensing (this is the paid version, not the free software) and Equidox. This guide focuses mainly on Adobe Acrobat Pro as it is a more widely available tool across higher education, but if you want to learn more about Equidox you can consult IT@Cornell’s Equidox vs. Adobe Acrobat and IT@Cornell’s Equidox. 

This guide will cover basic strategies for remediating PDFs in Adobe Acrobat Pro, but for more complex PDFs and specific, targeted issues, there are more in-depth step-by-step resources on fixing PDFs that we can recommend you review. Here are a few options:

Items to address before converting to a PDF

Most documents don’t start as PDFs. They are created in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, InDesign, or converted from LaTex, etc. If you or the course instructor(s) are the author(s) of the document you need to remediate, you likely have access to the source document in one of these tools, which can simplify the process of making the document accessible. In this situation, we recommend addressing some issues related to the content itself with the original tool before converting it to a PDF. 

While you can type and edit content directly in a PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro, the user interface is not intuitive or robust, and thus, editing directly is not recommended.

Examples of issues you should consider before converting a document to a PDF:

If you’re not the instructor or don’t have access to the original document, this guide is for you. 

Fix with Adobe Acrobat Pro

Before getting started, note the following:

  • Required software: The accessibility features needed for these strategies do not exist in the free software called Adobe Reader. Instead, Adobe Acrobat Pro is required. Cornell IT has information on Adobe Acrobat Pro Licensing, as well as a chart on the differences in features between Adobe Reader and Acrobat Pro.
  • Consider this a last resort: It can take hours to remediate a PDF, depending on many factors. Considering this time investment, determine if remediation is the best path for you or if another solution to providing accessible content will work. For other solutions, review First Steps to Take with PDFs.
Step 1: Download Adobe Acrobat Pro
  1. Cornell IT has information on how to access this software:
    Adobe Acrobat Pro Licensing.
  2. With the file saved on your desktop, open Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. 
  3. Go to File > Open. 
  4. Follow the prompts to open your PDF.
Step 2: Start with the automated features, Action Wizard & Accessibility Checker

A great place to start the remediation process is to use the automated tools built into Adobe Acrobat Pro that walk you through basic accessibility fixes. There are two tools that, when used together, can help you remediate most accessibility issues in your document: the Action Wizard and the Accessibility Checker. First,  we recommend using the Action Wizard: 

Action Wizard

Open the Action Wizard tool:

  1. Go to the Tools tab, and then scroll down to the Customize section.
  2. Click Action Wizard.
  3. Select Make Accessible in the panel that appears, and then click Start to launch the Action Wizard.

With a series of pop-ups, the Action Wizard will walk you through fixing the PDF’s accessibility issues. Pay special attention to the following two pop-ups: “Recognize Text” and “Set Alternative Text.”

Recognize Text

Recognize Text is the OCR tool. OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition.3

  1. When the Recognize Text pop-up appears, you will be asked to specify the Document Language, Output, and Downsample To. You can keep the default settings for these.
  2. Click OK.

An issue with some PDFs – such as those created from scanned hardcopies or older PDFs – is they often function as just one large image instead of as digital text. This means they are not searchable, highlightable, or accessible to screen readers and other assistive technologies. OCR is the process that converts these to digital text. 

To determine whether a document needs OCR, there are a few things you can do, namely: try to highlight a single word in the document OR try to search for words that you know are in the PDF. 

  • To open the search bar
    • Windows: Press Control and F keys at the same time
    • Mac: Press Command and F keys at the same time

If you cannot highlight or search for a word, your document is likely an image and not digital text. Recognize Text in Acrobat will automatically use OCR to convert the image to digital text. For more information about this tool, review Making the document searchable via OCR.

Set Alternative Text

The tool will prompt you to “Set alternative text” for each image in the PDF. Alternative text4 is a text description of what the image is conveying. Write that description in the text box provided.

It is recommended that you review this article on Alternative Text before you begin this step.

If the image is meant to be decorative and doesn’t convey content, check the Decorative figure checkbox instead of writing a description. Some examples of decorative images are lines and shapes used for layout, stock images, background images, etc.

Accessibility Checker

This is a two-step process because the Action Wizard does not check everything. It will finish by generating an Accessibility Report, which allows you to review and fix additional issues. Once you have the Action Wizard’s Accessibility Report, use the automated Accessibility Checker to find and fix the issues the Action Wizard couldn’t catch. To do so:

Open the Accessibility Checker:

  1. Go to Tools, and then scroll to the Protect & Standardize section.
  2. Click Accessibility.
  3. Select Accessibility Check in the panel that appears.
  4. In the Accessibility Checker Options pop-up window, go to each category in the Category drop-down menu (i.e, Document, Page Content, Forms, Tables and Lists, and Alternate Text and Headings).
  5. Click Select All in each of the four categories so that all options are checked.
  6. The Accessibility Checker report will open in a new panel. It will organize the accessibility issues under the following categories: Document, Page Content, Forms, Alternative Text, Tables, Lists, and Headings. Click the arrow icon next to each category to see specific issues; the Checker will indicate “Passed” “Failed”, or “Needs Manual Check”.
  7. For any “Failed” or “Needs Manual Review” issues, right-click (Windows) or ctrl-click (Mac OS) on the issue in the accessibility report, and then select Explain from the drop-down menu. This will open in your browser the applicable section in the following article, which explains the issue and tells you how to fix it in Acrobat: Fix Accessibility Issues. Note: Be sure you click the issue (e.g., Primary language, Title, Tagged PDF, etc.), not the category name (e.g., Document, Page Content, Forms, etc.)
Step 3: Manually Fix the Remaining Issues

Automated tools alone cannot make a PDF fully accessible. A human is still required to find and fix some issues. Here are a few examples of what you should look for to address the remaining accessibility issues in your document.

Check the PDF tags for accuracy, and fix them if needed

The accessibility checker will alert you if a document does not have PDF tags at all. (This issue is called “Tagged PDF” in the Accessibility Report.) However, if the PDF does have tags, the Accessibility Checker will not alert you if they are inaccurate. This is because this particular tool cannot determine if the PDF tags are correct or not. For example, it is common for headings to be incorrectly tagged as “p” (i.e., paragraphs). Despite this, Acrobat will still indicate it “passes” in the Accessibility Report for Tagged PDF. As a result, it’s important to check the accuracy of the tags yourself.

For step-by-step instructions on how to fix PDF tags, review Adobe’s Editing Document Structure with the Content and Tags Panels and the Create Accessible PDFs LinkedIn course.

Check the reading order of the PDF tags, and fix if needed

You also will have to indicate in what order the PDF tags are to be read by screen readers. 

For example, typically, you want the learner to start with the title, move on to the first heading, and then read the paragraph that immediately follows and review the supplemental image next to that paragraph.  

The software will try to determine the reading order once the PDF has tags, but the order it comes up with may result in the screen reader jumping around the document, ignoring the flow of the content.

You can check the reading order with the Tags panel in Acrobat:

  1. To open the Tags panel, go to View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panels > Tags.
  2. The Tags panel lists the PDF tags in order of how a screen reader will read them. Click the arrow icon next to a tag to read what text or image is associated with that tag.
  3. Alternatively, you can click the tag in the Tags Panel and it will highlight in the PDF.
  4. If a tag is out of order, click and drag it to the right spot in the panel. A line will appear to indicate where it will drop the tag.

There are more changes you may have to make using this panel. To learn more about what these changes may include and how to address them, we recommend reviewing this Acrobat Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels and taking the LinkedIn course Creating Accessible PDFs.

Tips

Pass or fail, always verify the PDF tags are accurate

If using Acrobat, remember that it’s important to always manually check the tags using the Tags panel, regardless of whether it says “passed” or “failed.” Acrobat will often pass a document for the Tagged Content issue even if the tags are incorrect. 

Note that while Acrobat does have an Autotag Document feature, if used you should still review the tags, paying close attention to the headings, as they are often mistakenly tagged as “p” (p stands for paragraph) by the software.

What does “needs manual check” mean?

Some issues, such as color contrast and logical reading order, will always be marked as “needs manual check” in the Acrobat accessibility report. This is because these issues require an understanding of the document topic or another skill an automated tool is not capable of yet. Therefore, it needs you to review the document and let it know if these are issues or not. Note that these issues are still important, and should not be skipped in the remediation process. 

What to fix first?

Finally, remember you have flexibility when taking on this process. You do not have to fix issues in the order listed in the report. Once you have more practice remediating PDFs, you will find the most efficient process that works for you, and can address any issues accordingly.

  1. These links are to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) associated with the strategies on this page. Review Our Approach for more information about WCAG. ↩
  2. A screen reader is a type of specialized text-to-speech assistive technology. ↩
  3. Optical Character Recognition or OCR is converting any text in an image or PDF into digital text that can be highlighted and copied, as well as read by a screen reader. ↩
  4. Alternative text, also called Alt Text, is a text description associated with the image in the semantic HTML. Alt text is vital for screen readers, but may also appear to all users when an image is broken or doesn’t load properly. ↩