Accessible PDFs

There are many great reasons to use PDFs. Following are some appropriate uses of PDF files on web pages.

  • Regulated forms: If your website points to forms that must be displayed in a specific way due to government or other regulation, a PDF file is a great solution. You can even use Acrobat to make it easier to fill out. Plus, anyone familiar with the printed form will be instantly comfortable with the online version.
  • Documents for printing: If you're providing documents that need to be printed, you can provide them as PDFs.
  • Document downloads: If you have long documents that you provide on your website, using PDFs is much better than the Word document itself. Readers can't modify the PDF like they can the Word document, and you can be sure that people on various types of computers will be able to open and use them.

If your PDF does not fit into these use cases, recreate the document as a web page and ensure that the page is accessible.

PDF documents are accessible if:

  • The information can be read by an assistive device such as screen reader.
  • Has hierarchy of headings – for clarity and understanding.
  • Lists, tables, and paragraphs marked – so visual information is pragmatically available.
  • Has bookmarks - bookmarks allow you to jump to the specified topic within a PDF document.
  • Important images have informative Alt tags – so they are understandable when not seen.
  • Unimportant images and graphics have empty Alt tags – so they can be skipped.
  • Correct tab order – keyboard-only user can follow the correct order.
  • Meta Data - Title, author, keywords etc. for discoverability.

CU Boulder's policy on PDFs follows WCAG 2.0 AA Guidelines. PDFs used in any CU digital communications (the web, email etc.) must meet the guidelines of  W3C WCAG 2.0 for PDF documents.

Learn How to Create Accessible PDFs

The best practice for accessible documents it to make it accessible as you create it. Many document creation tools have Accessibility tools and checkers built in. Use accessibility tools from the start and avoid having to correct the document later.

Documents with a true heading structure (H1-H6)

  • Retains this structure when correctly exported to PDF.
  • Readability is increased for all users.

Alt Text – Alternative information to an image, graphic etc.

  • Important images have informative Alt tags – so they are understandable when not seen.
  • Unimportant images and graphics have empty Alt tags – so they can be skipped.

Table and Lists

  • Use the built in list creation features, do not manually type in numbers for ordered lists.
  • Tables should be created using the built-in tools and column / row headers identified.
  • Do not merge cells, it is best to create simple tables.
  • These practices ensure semantic markup is provided in the document for assistive devices to use.

Tools for Creating Accessible PDF Documents

Tools for Testing PDFs

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