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kaitlinb24353797
Participant
Aug 8, 2018 7:00 PM UTC
Answered

Acrobat Pro Accessibility Checker - WCAG 2.1 Update

Does Acrobat Pro DC have the latest accessibility checker update of WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1? The WCAG 2.1 update was released in June of 2018, but it's unclear to me if the latest Acrobat Pro products have that update included or not. Does anyone know if that will be included in an Adobe update or will it need to be downloaded separately to have the latest version WCAG 2.1 for the accessibility checker?

maxwithdax
maxwithdaxCorrect answer
Community Expert
Apr 27, 2023 6:42 AM UTC

I know this is a really old thread but for anyone stumbling upon it, Adobe Acrobat does not validate a document meets any level of WCAG. It only evaluates the document based on a series of "pass/fail" criteria. Your document can pass Acrobat and still be 100% not WCAG compliant. 1.3.1 Info and Relationships say that the item on the page must be tagged appropriately. If there is a heading on the page it should be tagged as a heading. Acrobat only checks to see if a tag exists and does it meet technical requirements. It cannot know if your text is a heading or not. It cannot determine meaningful alt-text or many other key elements of accessibility. WCAG and Accessibility Compliance is always a combination of automated checks and MANUAL review. 

 

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4 replies

L Wick
Participating Frequently
Jul 23, 2024 10:11 PM UTC

Recently Acrobat Pro hasn't even been flagging documents that don't contain any headings. The guidelines say that content acting as a heading or label doesn't have to be marked up if it uses "standard text formatting conventions for headings" - but also says that method is applicable to "Plain text only. Not applicable to technologies that contain markup." which would exclude Acrobat.

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Souvik Sadhu
Souvik Sadhu
Legend
Jan 9, 2025 6:46 AM UTC

Hi @L Wick,

 

Hope you are doing well. Thanks for writing in!

 

I got this checked with the team that handles accessibility, and this is what they had to say about it:

"We don’t evaluate the tags in terms of conformance to any particular standard. You’d need to run PAC or some other accessibility validator. However, know that both Acrobat and PAC can only evaluate what is machine-detectable. WCAG 2.0 and even more so WCAG 2.2 contains rules that are only human-verifiable. You are, by design, not going to be able to automate full compliance. The authors of these specifications want the documents to be authored with accessibility in mind, not have accessibility applied post-hoc."

 

Hope this clarifies your question.

 

-Souvik

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L Wick
Participating Frequently
Jan 9, 2025 11:10 PM UTC

But whether headings are tagged or not is machine detectable. You ignoring this (and possibly other issues) basically makes your accessibility checker useless. I am proofing documents created by over 100 people and I can try to teach them all how to author accessible documents, but I still have to check their work to make sure they are compliant.

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maxwithdax
Community Expert
maxwithdaxCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
Apr 27, 2023 6:42 AM UTC

I know this is a really old thread but for anyone stumbling upon it, Adobe Acrobat does not validate a document meets any level of WCAG. It only evaluates the document based on a series of "pass/fail" criteria. Your document can pass Acrobat and still be 100% not WCAG compliant. 1.3.1 Info and Relationships say that the item on the page must be tagged appropriately. If there is a heading on the page it should be tagged as a heading. Acrobat only checks to see if a tag exists and does it meet technical requirements. It cannot know if your text is a heading or not. It cannot determine meaningful alt-text or many other key elements of accessibility. WCAG and Accessibility Compliance is always a combination of automated checks and MANUAL review. 

 

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