Accessibility Issues - Watermark?

Question

Hello,

Our organisation posts decisions where we need to include our watermark, you’ll see an example attached. However, it has been raised that our decisions have some accessibility issues which may be being caused by the watermark. We need to ensure the documents are accessible to a WCAG 2.2 AA standard, but it has been suggested that the watermark may currently be interfering with the ability for the text to be read properly by a screen reader. Are you able to offer some advice to let us know whether the watermark is the issue? Will it need to be removed entirely or are there other options which allow us to keep it (if it is the issue)? Thank you.

Tariq Dar · Answer

Hi @jordan_4631,

Thank you for reaching out, and I appreciate you taking the time to bring this to my attention.

Wait for further input from community users and domain experts.

From what you’ve described, the issue may be related to how the watermark is structured within the PDF. In some cases, if a watermark isn’t tagged properly or is placed in a way that overlaps text layers, it can interfere with screen readers or cause accessibility check failures.

In the meantime, here are a few quick pointers that may help:

Ensure the watermark is added as a background element rather than a foreground object.
Confirm that the watermark is marked as a decorative artifact, so screen readers ignore it.
Run Accessibility Check → Reading Order, which can often reveal layering issues caused by watermarks.

Let us know how it works.

Best regards,
Tariq | Adobe Community Team

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