Accessible Documents

• Open the document in Adobe Acrobat Pro
• Click on "Menu" then "Document Properties"
• Fill out the Title and Author
• Note that in Additional Metadata, you can add copyright information
• Go to the Advanced tab and set the language of the document

Controlling Reading Order

Reading order is controlled by tags in pdf files. These tags get out of order very easily with editing so this needs to be checked before the document is made public.

Clear Page Structure

If you edit a document much, the tags can create an illogical reading order and clearing them to start again may be your fastest solution.

• In All Tools, choose "Prepare for accessibility"
  • You may need to choose "More" to see more options
• Choose "Fix reading order"
• Choose the "Clear Page Structure"
  • Choose "Yes" when asked if you are sure

Add Tags

Automatically tag pdf

• In All Tools, choose" Prepare for accessibility"
  • You may need to choose "More" to see more options
• Choose "Automatically tag PDF"
  • This may take a minute depending on the length and complexity of the document
• Example - Image 1 is the title page of an article; Image 2 is the tag structure for that page

Manually add a tag (examples at the bottom of the box)

• In All Tools, choose" Prepare for accessibility"
  • You may need to choose "More" to see more options
• Choose "Fix reading order"
• Draw a rectangle around the content
• Click the kind of content it is
• You may then need to change the order of the tags (procedures follow)

Change the order of tags (examples at the bottom of the box)

• In All Tools, choose" Prepare for accessibility"
  • You may need to choose "More" to see more options
• Choose "Fix reading order"
• Click "Show Order Panel" button
• Drag the tag that you want to move to the position you want it in

Red arrow points to content that is added and is not tagged

 The new content is now tagged but it is not in the logical reading order

The new content tag has been moved into the correct reading order

Change the font color

• Open the document in Adobe Acrobat Pro
• Highlight the text you want to change
• Click the "Edit" menu then the Text heading under "Add Content"
• Click the colored box next to the font size

Change the background color

• This is done for whole pages only
• Click the "Edit" menu
• Click More under "Add Content"
• Click "Background"
• Click "Add"
• Indicate which pages you want to change the background color of in the top right corner of the dialog box ("Page Range Options")
• In the Source section, use teh "From color" box to choose a color
  • Alternatively, use the File option to use an image behind the text but know that this will make it harder to make the document accessible
• Edit the "Appearance options" to indicate whether the color shows when viewing the document on the computer and/or when printing
  • When viewing the document in Adobe Acrobat Pro, you will not see the color background

Put a color behind a section of text

• Use an image creation/editing program to create a shape that is the color you want the background
• Click the "Edit" menu
• Click Image under the "Add Content" section
• Choose your color shape and drop it on the page
  • Move it until it is where you want it
• Move the shape to the back using the "Arrange Objects" button in the "Adust Objects" section 
  • Use "Send to Back" to send it all the way back and then "Bring Forward" until the color is shown and the text is visible as well
• Check the color contrast - the Adobe color checker may not catch the contrast issue in this case

Alt text is in the tags of the document.

• In All Tools, choose" Prepare for accessibility"
  • You may need to choose "More" to see more options
• Choose "Fix reading order"
  • You may need to click the tags icon on the right of the screen 
• Draw a rectangle around the content
• Click the kind of content it is
• You may then need to change the order of the tags (procedures follow) 
• Find the tag for the image and right click on that tag
• Click on Properties and make sure the "Tag" tab is open
• Add the Alt Text in the box.

Headings

• Headings are tags in PDF files
• Headings do not affect the formatting of the font
  • You can manually change the look of the text of a header without affecting the header
  • If you manually change the look of a header, be consistent for all headers of the same level for those reading the document
    • Headers help readers scan a document so they need to be consistent
• Headings provide a way for screen readers to navigate a page
• When creating a PDF from another file type such as Word, heading styles will come from the original file

Lists

• Do not break a list up with something in the middle of it
  • If paragraph content needs to go in the middle of a list, try to reformat your content so the paragraph goes before or after the complete list
• Use a numbered list if the order of the list matters
• Use a bulleted list if the order of the list does not matter
• Use simple bullets rather than fancy images

Hyperlinks from a source document

• If a PDF is made from another document such as a Word document, the hyperlinks will come from the source document
• Formatting comes from source document so if wording or color are bad in the original, they will be bad in the PDF

Add hyperlinks to a PDF

Creating a linked table of contents is very useful in long PDF file

• Click the Edit menu
• Click "Link" under the "Add Content" section
• Click "Add or edit a link"
  • The pointer becomes a cross-hair
• Highlight the area you want to become the link
• In the dialog box, choose what type of link you want and click "Next"
  • You can link outside the document with "Open a web page"
    • Enter the URL for the web page and click OK
  • You can link to a place in the document with "Go to a page view"
    • Move to the place you want the file to go to and click "Set Link"
  • You can open a different file on a server with "Open a file"
    • Choose the file you want to open and click "Open"
  • You can link to something like adding a submit button to a form with "Custom link"
    • Choose the type of link you want, click on the "Actions" tab and choose what you want to do, click "Add"
    • Fill out the dialog box and click OK
    • Add any more actions you want related to this button
    • Click OK

Check the table

• Use the Accessibility Checker and look at the tables to see what you need to do to fix them (if anything)
• Information on using tha Accessibility Checker is on the main PDF page on this guide

Edit Table Headers

Method 1

• With the Accessibility Toolbar open, click on "Fix reading order"
  • To open the Accessibility Toolbar, click on "All tools" then click on "Prepare for accessibility" (may have to click "more" to see all the tools)
• Select the table you want to edit
  • With the Reading Order panel open, scroll to the table you want to edit, click in the table
• In the Reading Order panel, click the Table Editor
• Select the cells you want to make headers
  • Click and drag a rectangle around the cells you want
• Right click on the selected cells
• Select Table Cell Properties
• Choose Header Cell in Type

Method 2

• Open the tag pane
  • With the Accessibility Toolbar open, click the tag icon on the right 
  • Find the <Table> tag and click the arrow next to it
  • Click the arrow next to the first <TR> (table row) tag to see the tags for the individual cell
  • The header cells should be tagged <TH> and cells with data in them should be tagged <TD>