Creating ADA-compliant PDFs is simply the right thing to do. Everyone deserves equal access to information, and creating accessible PDFs ensures people with disabilities can access the same content as everyone else.
Additionally, ADA-compliant PDFs can prove instrumental in generating positive business results. In the United States alone, 61 million people live with disabilities. By providing accessible content, you’re tapping into this sizable market.
Finally, ensuring your PDFs are accessible is critical from a legal perspective, as well.
The ADA applies to businesses’ online domains, including PDF documents, and, under the law, they must be made accessible to people with disabilities. Presenting inaccessible PDFs is discriminatory against the disability community, and businesses that do so can face significant legal recourse, such as receiving ADA compliance demand letters and potentially facing ADA compliance lawsuits.
You can follow these best practices when creating an accessible PDF:
- Start with an accessible source document
If possible, it’s best to start with an accessible source document and export it to an accessible PDF. This ensures that your content is properly tagged and structured from the beginning. When you convert the source document into a PDF, it should retain its accessibility features - Use proper headings and structure
Organize your content with proper headings and create a logical reading order. Readers benefit from this as they can navigate the document and understand the content more easily - Include alternative text for non-text elements
All meaningful images, charts, and non-text elements should have alternative text descriptions. This helps people who rely on screen readers comprehend important information - Tag tables and forms properly
Properly-tagged tables and forms make a PDF more accessible. For tables, include header rows and columns to help people navigate your content. It is important to note that there are specific tags used for tables. When tagging a table as a whole, one should use the tage <Table>. Conversely, when tagging a specific row within a table, the <TR> tag should be applied - Ensure proper color contrast
Use sufficient color contrast between your text and the background. This makes your content accessible to all readers, including those with vision impairments - Use accessible fonts and formatting
Fonts and formatting are often overlooked, yet they can impact a person’s experience engaging with and consuming information appearing in a PDF. Avoid using fonts that are too small or difficult to read, and make sure your formatting is consistent throughout the documentYou can click here to read a more in-depth guide on choosing accessible fonts. - Identify all link destinations
Links appearing within a PDF should have concise, meaningful, and descriptive text that clearly indicates their destination. This helps readers using assistive technology quickly navigate content and determine which resources to explore further - Define the PDF’s language
PDFs must be properly tagged and identified in the correct language. Without the right language identification, screen readers may misinterpret the text, leading to confusionYou can follow these steps to define a language in Adobe Acrobat Pro XI
How to remediate an existing PDF document
The process of transforming an existing PDF into one that is ADA-compilant is called PDF remediation. It entails checking for accessibility issues existing within a PDF (such as incorrect or missing tags) and remediating them.
While this process seems straightforward, PDF remediation can become challenging when an organization needs to address a high volume of PDFs. This is especially true when these PDFs incorporate more complex, dynamic elements. This leads many businesses and organizations to rely on expert service providers, like accessServices, to remediate existing PDFs for them.
Remediation experts have a thorough understanding of the WCAG sections that apply to PDFs, and are better-equipped to manage larger and more complex remediation projects.
Click here to learn more about accessServices and how it can help you create ADA-compliant PDFs.
Creating ADA-compliant PDFs allows people with disabilities to access them, just like anyone else. With testing features built-in to most prominent PDF-creating tools, you can examine your existing PDFs and see if they need to be worked on to become fully-accessible. You can also rely on service providers like accessServices to remediate complex PDFs more quickly and efficiently.
