How To Create Accessible PDFs in Adobe Acrobat X Pro
Note: The following directions are for Adobe Acrobat Professional X. Other versions will have similar instructions, but the exact locations of these tools may differ slightly.
Testing the Accessibility of a PDF
Follow these steps in Adobe Reader (a free download) or Adobe Acrobat to hear the text read aloud.
· Click on the 'View' pull-down menu > Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud
· Again click 'View' pull-down menu > Read Out Loud > Read This Page Only.
Adding Tags to a Document
If the document reads aloud, but the text is read out of order, adding "tags" to the document may help.
To check if your document has tags, go to File>Properties and in the dialogue window select Description and at the bottom of the window it should tell you if there are tags within the document or not.
In Adobe Acrobat, open up the "Tools" pane on the right hand side. Then, choose Accessibility > Add Tags to Document. (This command adequately tags most standard layouts so text-to-speech software reads the PDF in the correct order, but it cannot always correctly interpret the structure and reading order of complex page elements.)
Note: If you do not see the Accessibility Option under tools, it is possible your Adobe Acrobat is not set to show this panel. To fix this, select "Show or Hide Panels" on the top of the "Tools" panels, and make sure there is a check next to "Accessibility".
Running Optical Character Recognition in a PDF
These steps are for those PDFs that do not read out loud when the read out loud options is selected in the previous instructions.
Once your PDF document is "opened" in Adobe Acrobat Pro:
1. Click on "Tools"
2. Under the "Recognize Text" click on "In This File"
3. In the box that pops up click "OK"
4. If the box pops up that asks if you want to ignore future errors check the box and click "OK"
5. Go to "File" and "Save" the document so it overwrites the previous one
Adding Alternate Text To Images
Acrobat will often tag images within your text as figures ad skip over them when reading through. Here is how to add a text description that will be read aloud in place of the image.
If there is no alternate text associated with the picture then within the black box in the upper right hand corner of the image it will say "No alternate text exists.
In order to add alternate text, right click on the image and select 'Edit Alternate Text'.
Touch Up Reading Order
If we take into account the readings around the previous picture, we can see that Acrobat does not always correctly infer the reading order or the document.
You can change the order of the reading selections by going to the side tools panel and selecting Accessibility and then Touch Up Reading Order.
This will select all of the text and images within the PDF and number them in the order that Acrobat will read them to you. Open up the left side bar in order to click and drag the reading selections to the correct order. It is always a good idea to take into consideration where the alternate text for the image should be read aloud (either at the beginning of the page or at the end).
You can also use the pop-up dialog box in order to change the tags associated with the different numbered sections.
After you have changed the reading order, the number should follow the correct reading order and the document should read out loud in the order that you specified.
If you want Adobe to skip over a section of reading, like a header or footer, select the section of reading and click on the "Background" button on the "Touch Up Reading Order" Window. This will mark the reading as background and adobe will skip over it. Don't forget to save your document after any changes!
Running an Accessibility Check on Your Document
An accessibility check is useful for determining whether or not your document is completely accessible or not. This will allow you to see if you document has tags, a language attribute, or missing any alternative texts.
Pull up the document that you want to run the test on and go to the right hand side of the window and select Tools and Click on the Expandable Accessibility Tab. Then select Full Check and this dialogue box will open up.
Select the options that best work for your situation, but usually the default options are just fine and click "Start Checking". If there are problems with your document then this window will show up.
When you click Okay the left hand side bar will open up to your accessibility report and all of the problems will be listed along the side of the window as seen here.
One of the main problems with PDFs is the lack of a language attribute. To fix this, go to File>Properties and when the window opens, make sure the Advanced Tab is open.
Under the reading options section, click on the Language pull down tab and select the language that the document is in.
To see how your changes have affected the document, run the accessibility check again and the differences will be show on the left side bar. We have already gone over how to add alternate text to figures within the document so another problem you might have is adding tags to your document. Directions for this are at the beginning of this document.
The accessibility Check will also pull out any tables that you have in your document and keep Adobe from reading them unless you add a table summary. To add a table summary, simply open up the Touch Up Reading Order window, select the table that you wish to edit and click the button that says Table Editor.
Adding Page Numbers
Sometimes the page numbers that are on the pages of your PDF and the page numbers that Adobe gives your document are not the same. In order to have your numbers match up, click on the button on the left hand side of the window that looks like several sheets of paper. This will open up the page thumbnails, or smaller versions of the pages in your PDF. The page numbers will be shown underneath each thumbnail and to change them just right click and select "Number Pages" from the pull down menu.
In the Start box enter the number that you want your page numbers to start at and you can choose different numbering styles as well. Make sure that you select all pages before clicking okay otherwise only the highlighted pages will be numbered differently.
Checking and Adding Security to your PDFs
To add some security measures to your document like a password, go to File>Properties and then select the Security Tab from the top of the window. From the drop down menu under Security method, choose what type of security you would like to add to your PDF. Any restrictions that are on the document will be listed in the window as well.
Creating Accessible Links
If you would like to make moving through your document easier, then adding accessible links in your PDF might be the way to go. Links that are already in the PDF when you added tags to your document are already tagged into the tag tree and will most likely be accessible to screen readers already. The easiest way to make tags is through the Create Link Command. Using this method will ensure that all of the tags that screen readers need to function properly will be applied. To add a link to somewhere in the PDF, select the area that you would like to make a link for, right click and select "Create Link".
All of the different link options are available to you through this window. Just keep in mind that if you create a link to an outside file or a webpage, the destination might not be accessible to screen readers but if you create a link to a document you made or another place within the same document then it can be accessible.
To add a bookmark in your PDF, right click on your highlighted selection or page and select "Add Bookmark". The bookmark will then show up in the left side menu and you can right click and rename it from that menu. All of the bookmarks that are in the PDF document will be listed here. Bookmarks can be a handy way to create a table of contents within the PDF that you have.
Table Summary
Often times Adobe will not be able to read a table in the right order even when you have run OCR and Added tags to the PDF. In this case you will want to use a table summary to fix the problem. A summary will allows you to alter what is going to be read aloud when the program gets to the table. To do this, right click over the table and click add a Table Summary.
If you are looking for something a little more intensive, you can also try editing the Table Tags using the Touch Up Reading Order tool.
Once in the Table Editing mode, tour table will look more like the image below and you should be able to select certain cells and give the hierarchical designations.
To differentiate between header cells and body cells. Click within the cell to select it and to select more than one cell, hold down the Shift key while clicking. Right click to show the Cell Properties and use the window to chose the options appropriate for your cells.