PDF Accessibility Solutions Overview

Several laws require PDFs—and other digital content—to be accessible for people with disabilities. The specific law, or laws, that applies to your organization depends on several factors, including whether your organization is public or private, where your organization is located, and where your consumers are located.

For example, in the U.S., Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires PDF accessibility and applies to U.S. federal agencies and those that work with federal agencies. Other laws with PDF accessibility requirements include the ADA, the European Accessibility Act, Canada’s AODA, and others.

If you want to learn more about PDF accessibility compliance requirements applicable to your organization, engage with our team today.

It’s important to create and implement organization-wide processes to create, manage, update, and publish accessible content—including accessible PDFs.

Helpful best practices include:

• Establish a policy to define how your organization will approach PDF accessibility, including standards for compliance. Make this policy part of your content creation and publication workflows.
• Regularly scan your PDFs—including those embedded within your website, intranet, or other online portals, to evaluate and monitor accessibility on an ongoing basis.
• Prioritize remediation of inaccessible PDFs, starting with those that are accessed by users most often.
• Ensure employees have access to PDF accessibility tools and support services to maintain accessibility as new PDFs are created and published.
• Leverage a third-party expert to support PDF remediation work if you have large quantities of inaccessible documents. Ensure that solution provider will deliver documents with a 100% conformance guarantee.
• Approach PDF accessibility as an on-going journey, not a one-time task to complete. Accessibility standards and laws mandating compliance continue to evolve.

Converting or creating content in HTML can be a great way to make information more accessible. However, many documents require printing, off-line availability, and/or signature, which prohibits conversion to HTML.

Furthermore, many organizations do not have enough bandwidth to convert every document to HTML.