Adobe Acrobat Pro

When creating or editing a PDF file, Adobe Acrobat Pro offers a comprehensive accessibility checker and several options for making documents and forms more user-friendly.

Accessibility tools/preferences for end users are available in Adobe Reader, which is free. For a list of accessibility options available to users, visit https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/reading-pdfs-reflow-accessibility-features.html

Note that in order to add/edit things like form fields, document tags, alt text, and to set reading order, etc., you will need Adobe Acrobat Pro, which must be purchased.

The links below will direct you to PDF accessibility topic pages maintained by Adobe.

• Create and verify PDF accessibility

• Accessibility features in PDFs

• Reading order tool for PDFs

• Edit document structure with the Content and Tag Panels

• Creating accessible PDFs

Below is a screenshot of the accessibility checker menu in Adobe Acrobat Pro. Choose “All Tools”, then “Prepare for accessibility”. To do a preliminary check of the document, select “Check for accessibility”.

After running the check, a list of issues and potential issues will appear in a sidebar:

A note about document tagging

Tagging each element in a document manually is an arduous process. However, be aware that the auto-tagging feature in Acrobat Pro often creates inaccurate tags, so remember to review the auto-results and make changes as needed.