PDF Remediation for Accessibility

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Meeting the PDF Accessibility Challenge

Ease of creation and convenience have made PDFs a very prolific electronic document type across the internet. But, as with webpages, PDFs also need to meet accessibility requirements in order to serve users dependent on assistive technologies.

Before you go through this process, consider if PDF is the right format for your content:

Does it need to be printed with a specific format? Printing is PDF's real reason for existence.
Will people need to look at this on mobile devices? PDFs do not resize to fit the device they are on, and are a very poor choice for general communication.

In most cases, we should be making a web page instead of a PDF, and the tools for making an accessible, mobile-friendly web page are built into our content management system. But, if you absolutely need a printable document, then carry on.

Throughout this page you will find tutorials and resources to help you in creating fully accessible PDFs. The goal for this page is for it to grow over time to add more tips and techniques so that you can better serve those who access your online documents.

Adobe Acrobat Pro is necessary for remediating PDF files. The application is available via Adobe Creative Cloud. If you need assistance in obtaining Adobe Creative Cloud, contact helpdesk@wichita.edu for assistance.

For questions related to PDF remediation, please submit a Support Request via the .

PDFs Sourced from Microsoft Word Documents

Most PDFs our team encounter that require remediation have been exported from Microsoft Word. If the document has been remediated in Word before export to PDF, It can dramatically reduce - or even eliminate - any need to remediate the final PDF in Acrobat Pro. For tutorials and best practices on remediation and optimized accessibility options for Word documents, please visit our Microsoft Word Remediation for Accessibility webpage.

Note: Fillable form documents requiring users to provide information ALWAYS require PDF remediation. For fillable form PDFs, please refer to the Basic and Advanced PDF Form Remediation tutorials below.

Microsoft Word Remediation for Accessibility

Additional Accessibility Considerations

These points are covered in more detail in the Document Creation: Best Practices section of the Microsoft Word Remediation for Accessibility webpage.

Do not use headers or footers
Do not use footnotes - incorporate any and all important information into the main content text itself
Break up complicated, multitopic tables into separate tables
Utilize headings to greatly improve document navigation in screenreader applications
Avoid using scanned PDFs - they are actually images instead of text, require Optical Character Recognition to translate to text, and the worse the quality of the scan, the less effective (therefore, less accessible) the end result will be

Document Creation: Best Practices

Tutorials Menu

Click the button for the tutorial section you wish to use.

Exporting Remediated Word Documents Basic PDF Remediation Basic PDF Form Remediation Advanced PDF Form Remediation Resource Documents

Tutorial 1: Exporting Remediated Word Documents

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Tutorial 2: Basic PDF Remediation for Accessibility

We recommend watching the video in fullscreen mode so all tools and tags are clearly visible.

Practice Files

Samples of the PDFs presented in the videos are included in downloadable ZIP format. One is a nonremediated version that can be used for practice or to follow along with the video, and the other is a completed version that can be used for structure review.

Basic PDF Practice File - For use in practicing PDF remediation along with the instructional video.

Basic PDF Remediated - a finished version of the Practice File that can be used as a reference.