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Middlesex Campus Library

Middlesex Creating Accessible Digital Assets

Accessibility Guidelines for PDFs

  • For most cases, HTML or Word is a better choice.
  • Use a version no older than Acrobat 5.0 to create PDF documents. Acrobat 5.0 has new features that are critical for the accessibility of PDF documents.
  • Tagging is essential for PDF accessibility. Tags establish logical reading order and to provide a means for indicating structure and type, adding alternative text descriptions to non-text elements and substitute text (referred to as actual text) for elements in the PDF document.Go to File > Properties to check if it is a tagged PDF.
  • For scanning PDF, optical character recognition (OCR) software works with your scanner to convert printed characters into digital text, allowing you to search for or edit your document in a word processing program.

PDF Accessibility Training Videos