Accessible PDFs: A Major Often-Neglected Issue
PDF documents are ubiquitous yet most published online are totally inaccessible to screen readers. RGAA requires downloadable documents to be accessible (criteria 13.3 and 13.4).
What Is an Accessible PDF?
An accessible PDF is tagged (structured elements), has a logical structure tree, contains selectable text, includes alt text for images, has tagged tables with headers, defines document title and language, and conforms to PDF/UA standard.
Creating from Word
Use heading styles, add alt text to images, indicate header rows in tables, use native lists, set document language, run Word's accessibility checker, and export with "Document structure tags for accessibility" checked.
Creating from LibreOffice
Use heading styles, add alt text, export to PDF with "Tagged PDF" checked.
Fixing with Acrobat Pro
Run full accessibility check against PDF/UA-1, add tags, fix structure tree, add alt text to figures, define table headers, set title and language, and fix reading order.
Alternatives to PDF
When possible, prefer HTML (most natively accessible), EPUB (for long documents), or provide an HTML version alongside the PDF.
A properly tagged PDF is accessible to everyone. Build the habit of creating accessible documents from the start — it is easier and less costly than fixing them afterward.