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Guidelines: Accessible Adobe PDF Files



Categories: Must Should MAY

The "May Items" can provide added functionality for people with disabilities.

 

  1. If the PDF is sufficiently long (at or greater than 10 pages), create an index for easier navigation.An index that contains interactive links to different topics of the document allows all users to navigate through the document with ease and allows users to find what they are looking for quickly. The index should contain topics listed in alphabetical order with the page number that every topic can be found on in the document.

  2. Include a "Skip Navigation" link if every page in the PDF document has navigation bar or some other text that is repeated at the top of every page.If a PDF document has text or images that consistently appear on every page, it is necessary to implement a "skip navigation" link. This allows those users who use assistive technologies to avoid having their screen readers or Braille readers read the text on every page. The link can be "hidden", or have the same color as the background, so the accessible document can maintain the same look and feel as the previous one.

  3. Specify changes in the language in the document.Using tags to define changes in the document language can be a benefit for future screen readers that may be able to change languages in the middle of a document.

  4. Fill out the meta information to allow for easier searching on the internet and provides a user with more information about the document.Metadata is a description of the document, such as its title, author, copyright information, and a description of the document. The metadata also contains keywords that can be entered that allows search engines like Google and Yahoo to find the document on the internet. For those fields that do not apply, or to protect privacy, place the word "None" in the fields (except the 'keyword' field, which should be left blank), so the assistive devices may recognize that metadata does not exist for that field.

  5. Create a logical reading order to the document.Making sure the document contains a hierarchy of headings and titles, as well as making sure columns are formatted if multiple columns exist, increases usability of the document by allowing users to gain knowledge about the document in a meaningful way. Also, if multiple columns exist and columns are not formatted correctly, an assistive device will not read the content correctly.

  6. Data tables should be marked up correctly using tags.Correct tags, such as <table> to signify a data table, <TR> to signify a table row, <TD> to signify a table cell should be used, and <TH> to signify table headers, for future assistive technologies that will be able to read tables correctly.


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