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Remediate a PDF for accessibility using Adobe’s Accessibility Checker

by Whitney Lewis

Adobe Acrobat Pro’s Accessibility Checker is a great way to review and fix PDF accessibility issues.

In this video, we go over:

  • The overall remediation steps
  • How to use the accessibility checker

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Transcript

In this video, we’ll go through the steps for reviewing and fixing your PDF’s accessibility.

We’ll quickly cover the overall remediation steps. Then, spend most of our time on how to use the accessibility checker.

Let’s get started.

The steps for checking a PDF are to first manually review the PDF’s tags. You’ll use the Fix reading order tool to make sure each tag is correct. Second, you’ll manually review the reading order, which is also done with the Fix reading order tool. And third, If your document has tables, use the, you guessed it, Fix reading order tool to check the table’s tag structure.

The first three steps all revolve around the Fix reading order tool. If you start with it, you’ll fix most issues. To learn how to use this tool, watch our video, How to use Adobe Acrobat’s Fix reading order tool.

Once you’ve checked the document’s tags, reading order, and table tags with the Fix reading order tool, you’re ready to use the Accessibility Checker. 

Let’s run the Accessibility Checker. Select All Tools in the top left. Then, select Prepare for accessibility. Now, select Check for accessibility.

Under Checking Options, make sure everything is selected and select Start Checking. When it’s done, the results show in the Accessibility Checker pane.

There are seven result sections: Document, Page content, Forms, Alternative text, Tables, Lists, and Headings. Each result either says pass, fail, or needs a manual check.

Let’s go through our results to learn how this would work.

I had four issues under Document.

First is Logical reading order needs a manual check. I already did this with my Fix reading order tool, so I can right-click and select Pass. 

Next is Primary Language. I’ll right-click and select Fix. Then, I can choose the document language.

Third is the document title. I’ll right-click and select Fix. Adobe automatically adds a title based on the filename. To manually fix it, I’d right-click and select Explain for more information.

The last one is color contrast, and it needs a manual check. This document doesn’t have any color contrast issues, so I’ll right-click and select Pass.

This PDF passed all the Page content results. The first check under Page content results is tagged content. It’s important to remember that Adobe can tell if your document is tagged, but not if those tags are correct. That’s why you have to manually check those tabs with the Fix reading order tool first.

There aren’t any form fields, so there weren’t any issues there.

I had one issue under Alternative text – there’s an image that doesn’t have alternative text. To fix this, I’ll right-click, select Fix, and Adobe opens a dialogue box to add the alternate text or define it as a decorative figure.

The issue under Tables is that there isn’t a table summary. Table summaries are optional, but can be important because screen readers announce them before announcing the table’s data.

The paragraph above my table summarizes the table already, so the table doesn’t need an additional summary. I’ll right-click and select Skip rule.

There’s one issue under Lists. The list items in my list failed. To understand what this means, I’ll right-click and select Explain. Here it tells me what it’s checking for and how to fix it. I learned this result checks “whether each List Item (LI) is a child of List (L).” And, I need to fix it using the Accessibility Tags panel.

This is one of the only times I’d use the Accessibility Tags panel because the Accessibility Checker pointed me to use it. 

In the Accessibility Checker panel with the List items caret open, I can right-click the element that has the issue and select Show in Tags panel.

In the Tags panel, I select the list-related tags. As I select them, there’s a pink border around the element in the PDF. This helps me understand the structure of the list.

Each list item (LI) needs to be a child of a list (L). In my accessibility tags panel, I notice there’s a Sect tag after the first list item. So, the second and third list item aren’t tied to the parent list.

I’ll drag those list items up, so they are in order below the list tag. Then, I’ll right-click and delete the Sect tag.

Anytime you work in the Accessibility Tags panel, you should quickly recheck the tags and reading order in the Fix reading order tool. 

Back in the Accessibility Checker, List items is now passing.

My headings passed, so there aren’t any issues here.

You’re ready to use the Accessibility Checker to help make your PDFs more accessible. Remember to check out our video about the Fix reading order tool and to subscribe for more accessibility videos.

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