PDFs used or developed at U-M are required to meet digital accessibility standards and provide equitable access for people with disabilities.
Not sure if your PDF is accessible? Use the following instructions to find out.
Install Adobe Acrobat Pro
Before testing, make sure you have Acrobat Pro, part of Adobe Creative Cloud at U-M. It is available for all university faculty, staff, and students.
Run Automated Tests
Acrobat Pro has an automated accessibility checker that identifies some accessibility barriers in PDFs. Start your testing by running Adobe's Accessibility Checker.
Understanding the Results
After you run the checker, results are displayed in the side panel. Each check is listed as Passed, Failed, Needs Manual Check, or Skipped.
Pass/Fail Conditions
A Failed result means that your document has an accessibility issue. Any of the Failed results in the table below indicate a significant accessibility issue.
A Passed result means that everything in your document passes the accessibility check in that category.
| Fail Condition | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Document > Image only PDF | All of the content in the PDF is an image, including what looks like text. Many types of assistive technology will be unable to access the content. |
| Document > Tagged PDF | Content structure, such as headings, tables, paragraphs, lists, etc., will not identified as such for screen reader users. All of the text will be read as a long run-on sentence. |
| Page content > Tab order | People who navigate via keyboard (and devices that emulate the keyboard) will experience serious difficulty because content order provided to them does not match the visual order. |
| Forms > Tagged form fields | Form fields are not identified as such. |
| Forms > Field descriptions | Form fields may have a visual label, but they do not have a label that screen readers can access. Screen reader users will not know how to complete the field. |
| Alternate text > Figures alternate text | Images lack alternative text that will make them meaningful to people using screen readers. |
| Tables > Any failure | Improperly configured tables make it impossible for people using screen readers to understand their structure. |
| Headings > Appropriate nesting | Improperly nested headings jumble the logical order of the document. |
Perform Manual Testing
Some accessibility issues cannot be found using the automated Accessibility Checker. Conduct the following manual tests in addition to using the Accessibility Checker.
Color Contrast
It is important that the colors you select for the text and background of your PDF have enough contrast to make text readable, especially for people with low vision. Text over background images may be particularly problematic as you will have to compare the text color to the lightest and darkest colors in the image. Learn how to test color contrast.
Reading Order
If the reading order of the PDF has not been properly set, the document will be confusing and disorganized for someone using a screen reader. Acrobat Pro has a Reading Order tool to help you determine if this is the case. Adobe’s Reading Order tool instructions will guide you through checking and changing the reading order.
Fixing Issues
To address issues in your PDF, you have several options:
- If you have the source document in an editable format, improve the original doc then export to PDF
- Make accessible PDFs from Google Docs
- Make accessible PDFs from Word documents
- To improve PDFs manually or with automated tools, review training resources