Accessible PDFs

Developing and delivering accessible instructional content—meaning content that students with and without disabilities can readily engage with and use—is essential to the success of an online course. While many accessibility standards and guidelines are broadly applicable, there are also specific considerations unique to different content formats and delivery modes. In this piece, we present recommendations for enhancing the accessibility of PDFs for students.

If you are creating PDFs for your course, you can avoid or preemptively address many common accessibility issues found in PDFs. Developing source files (e.g., text-based documents, slides, or spreadsheets) in accordance with the following recommendations will help reduce or eliminate the need for further accessibility-related adjustments after the files have been exported as PDFs.

Develop your file using a web-safe, sans-serif font such as Arial to maximize readability. Web-safe fonts adapt across browsers and devices, ensuring that text content will consistently display as intended. Sans-serif fonts—fonts that lack extension lines for the strokes of letters—generally enhance readability.

Additionally, strategically limit the use of bolding and italicization to ensure that emphasis is clear and targeted. Underlining should always be avoided to prevent plain text content from being mistaken for a hyperlink.

For documents specifically, apply a consistent heading structure in your document to ensure students can navigate through the material as intended and to clarify the relationships between ideas and content sections. In creating a heading structure, be sure to apply heading styles in sequential order and avoid skipping levels. For example, the first heading style applied in your document should be a Heading 1, followed by a Heading 2.

If your file contains a table, make sure the table begins with a header row, which labels the contents of each column. Including a table header row helps ensure that students can readily comprehend the structure and contents of the table. To learn more about creating accessible tables, you may find it helpful to review the Microsoft guide to creating accessible tables in Word or the Google guide to adding and editing tables in Google Docs.

Color can be used to augment file formatting but can also present accessibility challenges for students. Low color contrast and reliance on color to convey meaning can make it difficult for students to perceive information. Thus, while strategic incorporation of color can be useful, it is important to select accessible color combinations and to ensure that all students can perceive the needed information from your file. If you plan to use color in your file, use a color contrast checker to ensure that your color choices meet web accessibility requirements. If you plan to use color to convey meaning, incorporate descriptive labels to enhance clarity.

To maximize accessibility, text-based content should be added directly to your file rather than inserted as an image or screenshot. Content added as an image or screenshot requires a text-based alternative for the content to be accessible to students using assistive technology.

If your course includes quantitative content, it is important to note that this guideline also applies to equations. Equations should be entered into your file directly using an equation editor.

You will want to ensure that text descriptions of any images conveying information are available for students with visual limitations. If your file contains images that do not convey information and simply serve as decoration, you will want to instead mark them as decorative. For guidance on writing alt text and marking images as decorative, see the No Sweat Alt Text Envision guide.

The Accessibility Checker is a useful tool for identifying and addressing accessibility concerns in Word documents, PowerPoint files, and Excel spreadsheets. To run the Accessibility Checker, open your file and navigate to the Review tab. Then, select Check Accessibility from the options presented in the ribbon. If you are using other software to develop your content, we recommend seeking out and reviewing software-specific accessibility resources.

The recommendations presented in this piece account for many—but not all—of the common issues the Accessibility Checker will flag. Using the Accessibility Checker to identify and address remaining issues before you export your files as PDFs will help ensure that all of your students can engage with your files equitably and productively.

When exporting your file, make sure that any available options related to preserving accessibility are selected. For example, if exporting a Word document, you will want to select "Document structure tags for accessibility" in the export dialogue window if using Windows or the "Best for electronic distribution and accessibility" option if using a Mac.

PDFs curated from other sources may or may not have been designed with accessibility guidelines in mind. While it is often more challenging to enhance the accessibility of a curated PDF as compared to a file you have prepared yourself, there are steps you can take to improve curated PDFs.

To identify PDF accessibility issues efficiently, use a PDF checker. Depending on the checker you use and the specific results from the check, you may have the option to select and address identified accessibility issues automatically. For example, the Accessibility Checker in Adobe Acrobat Pro can identify and convert image-only PDFs using optical character recognition, confirm the organization of a document's tags and reading order, and confirm that details needed for navigation by assistive technologies are present. That said, fully correcting accessibility issues—and confirming that corrections function as intended—can be a complex and time-consuming process.

Given the challenges associated with correcting accessibility issues in curated PDFs, we recommend exploring options for alternative versions or formats. If you are assigning a chapter of a book, for example, check whether you can provide students with a university library link to an electronic copy instead of a PDF.

If alternative versions or formats aren’t available for the PDF you’ve selected and the PDF has accessibility issues, we recommend exploring support resources within your institution. Institutional offices dedicated to support for students with disabilities, for example, may be able to assist with file updates or the acquisition of more accessible versions or formats.

Course content is often developed and delivered in a variety of formats. Ensuring that the content in your course is as accessible as possible is essential to promoting student success. The considerations and recommendations outlined in this piece can help you enhance the accessibility of source files before exporting them as PDFs and mitigate accessibility issues in curated PDFs. For more information on applicable tools and websites you can use, review our list of accessibility resources.