PDF Accessibility

[Tommy Thomson]

Hi 

I'm creating some training to advise colleagues about making PDF documents as accessible as possible.

I did some research and found an online video which advised using the Action Wizard in Acrobat to run accessibility checks.

However, what I found with this was that when it runs I think, because it is scanning the document, Alt text on images get lost.

Am I right in thinking that I am better to advise people to run Accessibility Check in Acrobat first of all?

This seems to honour pre-existing Alt text which is great!

Also, does anyone know of useful training to guide fixes like tables and nested content for example? I  find the Adobe guidance hard to understand at times and not so intuitive.

Cheers

Graham

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

In our classes and books, we do not recommend using the Make Assessible action wizard because of its one-size-fits-all approach, which causes the problems you found.

It is useful only in one case:

When a PDF is untagged or is a scan. Its steps to OCR the text and autotag it kill all existing accessibility that might already be in the PDF —tags, reading orders, alt-text, hyperlinks.

An analogy: If you wanted to fix-up your kitchen, you tear out all the cabinets, countertops, and appliances and replace them because you want to fix a small scratch on a cabinet door.

Recommendation:

• Use the Make Accessible Action Wizard only when you have a PDF that is either untagged (like legacy documents) or it's a scan or graphic version of the text (like a screen capture or made from an old printed book).
   
• For all other PDFs, especially if you're guiding your colleagues to review the PDFs they export from MS Word and other software programs, use the Accessibility Checker in Acrobat's Accessibility Panel. Set it to check all items except for the Table Summaries in the Tables section. (No longer recommended by the industry.)

There are many resources on the internet for how to make accessible PDFs, but be careful of which ones to adopt as models for your organization's policies and procedures:

• Some find non-error "errors" so that they can pitch you their software program to fix the "error."
• Some over-engineer the steps to fix the PDF so that you give up and buy their online service to fix it for you.
• Adobe's information on accessibility is, well, nearly pure bunk. Don't follow one word of it.
• Many provide unnecessary requirements; these are their subjective interpretations of the standards or they're designed to steer you to use their paid products and services.
• Other guides are incomplete.
• And some are out of date or just plain wrong. (Check the date the information was published.)

Remember, nothing ever dies on the Internet!

But here are 2 excellent, free, authoritative, and objective resources you can incorporate into your guide:

• The accessibility checklists and guides developed by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). https://www.hhs.gov/web/section-508/accessibility-checklists/index.html  This information is in the public domain because it was developed and tested by a US federal government agency. Anyone in the world can follow their guidance.
• "The Syntax Guide:" Tagged PDF Best Practice Guide at https://www.pdfa.org/resource/tagged-pdf-best-practice-guide-syntax/  Developed by the PDF Association, the same folks appointed by the ISO to write the PDF/UA accessibility standards. It details the nitty gritty of tag tree structures for different types of elements.

We use these 2 references in my firm's accessibility work and recommend them to our government and corporate clients.

Disclaimer: My firm is a corporate member of the PDF Association and I was on the committee that wrote the Syntax Guide.  I'm also a US Delegate to the ISO Committees for PDF and  PDF/UA (universal access) standards.

Glad you're working on this for your organization! Sure helps make digital information accessible and available to everyone. Kudos!

[Tommy Thomson]

Hi Bevi

Thank you for such a well informed and articulate answer!

I must admit that I was quite stressed about how to advise people, but your advice has totally reassured me!

Thanks also for the links to the resources. I will check them out.

Much appreciated and thanks again.

Cheers

Graham

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Hi Bevi,

I usually recommend running the "Check Accessibility" in Office first since I think it is better to fix the problems closest to the source. Then running the Accessibility Checker in Acrobat. 

Q: Are you OK with that workflow?

Also, thank you for the links. I was familiar with the HHS site but not Syntax guide. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

No harm in using any internal checkers in the source program, such as the one in Word.

Traditionally, they really don't check much — missing Alt-text on graphics and heading hierarchy.

But the most recent version of Office 365 has some very nice improvements: contrast, table structure, and a few more.

So yes, encourage your clients/students to first use the internal tools. But what's really most effective is teaching them what is needed and how to use their software to achieve it, including how to check PDFs for compliance.

Documents made with today's software should never ever EVER need to go to a remediation house ... create them accessible right out of the box!