How to Make PDFs Accessible — A Guide for Compliance and Inclusion
Create accessible PDFs that work with screen readers. Tags, alt text, reading order, color contrast, and meeting WCAG/Section 508 requirements.
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285 Million Reasons to Care About PDF Accessibility
The World Health Organization estimates 285 million people worldwide have visual impairments. Add motor disabilities, cognitive disabilities, and temporary impairments (broken arm, eye surgery recovery), and accessible documents affect far more people than most organizations realize.
Beyond the moral case, there's a legal one. US federal agencies must comply with Section 508. Educational institutions must comply with ADA Title II. EU organizations face the European Accessibility Act. And increasingly, private companies are sued for inaccessible digital content.
What Makes a PDF "Accessible"
An accessible PDF can be:
Read by screen readers — Software like JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver can read the content aloud in the correct order
Navigated by keyboard — Users can Tab through form fields and links without a mouse
Understood without color — Information doesn't rely solely on color to convey meaning
Zoomed without breaking — Content reflows or remains readable at 200%+ zoom
The Tag Structure
The most important technical requirement is PDF tags — invisible structural markup that tells assistive technology what each element is:
Tag
Purpose
Example
,
Headings
Chapter titles, section headers
Paragraphs
Body text
Data tables
Spreadsheet-like content
Images
Photos, diagrams, charts
Hyperlinks
URLs, cross-references
Lists
Bulleted or numbered items
Form fields
Input fields, checkboxes
Without tags, a screen reader reads the PDF as a single stream of text with no structure — headings, paragraphs, and image descriptions all blend together into an incomprehensible wall of words.
How to Create Accessible PDFs
Start in the Source Document
The easiest way to create an accessible PDF is to start with an accessible source document:
Microsoft Word:
Use heading styles (H1, H2, H3) for all headings
Add alt text to every image (right-click → Edit Alt Text)
Use actual lists (bulleted/numbered), not manual dashes
Use actual tables for data, not tabs and spaces
Set document language (File → Options → Language)
Export to PDF with "Document structure tags for accessibility" checked
Google Docs:
Use heading styles
Add alt text to images (right-click → Alt text)
Export to PDF — basic tags are included automatically
InDesign:
Use paragraph styles mapped to PDF tags
Set reading order in the Articles panel
Add alt text to placed images
Export with "Create Tagged PDF" checked
Fix Existing PDFs
If you have PDFs that aren't accessible (scanned documents, poorly exported files):
OCR first: If it's a scanned document, run MyPDF's OCR to create a text layer
Add tags: Adobe Acrobat Pro's accessibility tools can auto-tag most documents
Fix reading order: Verify the order makes sense (two-column layouts often read left-column then right-column, confusing screen readers)
Add alt text: Every meaningful image needs a description
The WCAG Checklist for PDFs
Requirement
WCAG Level
How to Meet It
Document is tagged
A
Export with tags from source
Reading order is logical
A
Set in authoring tool
Images have alt text
A
Add descriptive alt text
Links have descriptive text
A
"Download the report" not "Click here"
Language is set
A
Specify in document properties
Color isn't the only indicator
A
Don't rely on red/green alone
Contrast ratio ≥ 4.5:1
AA
Check with contrast checker tool
Tables have headers
A
Mark header row/column
Forms are labeled
A
Associate labels with fields
Document title is set
A
Set in PDF properties
Common Accessibility Mistakes
"Decorative" images that aren't marked as decorative
A decorative border or background image that a screen reader announces as "image" with no alt text confuses users. Mark purely decorative images as artifacts (in Acrobat) or give them empty alt text.
Scanned PDFs with no OCR
A scanned PDF is just a picture of text. It's completely invisible to screen readers. Always OCR scanned documents.
Using color alone to convey meaning
"Required fields are in red" is meaningless to a colorblind user. Add asterisks, labels, or other non-color indicators alongside color.
Forgetting about forms
PDF form fields need associated labels. A field next to the text "Name" isn't automatically linked — screen readers may announce "edit field" with no context about what to type.
Testing Accessibility
Acrobat's Accessibility Checker: Full Checks → Run. Flags common issues.
Screen reader testing: Download NVDA (free, Windows) and try reading your PDF. If you can't follow it by ear, neither can a blind user.
Keyboard testing: Can you Tab through every link and form field? In the right order?
Read aloud test: Acrobat → View → Read Out Loud. Does the content make sense spoken sequentially?