Eight Essentials for Creating Accessible PDF Documents

1. Eight Essentials for Creating Accessible PDF Documents California State University Fullerton Campus Information Technology Training Timothy Benbow

2. Step One: BookMark Your Content • Bookmark your documents.Creating bookmarks in your document makes it easy to access the chapters/sections of your document and for a reader to understand the overall scope of the document and the way the information is organized. Bookmarked titles should be marked with the appropriate level H (heading) tag.Heading in Microsoft Word documents will be automatically made into bookmarks in your PDF

3. STep Two: Create Articles • Create ArticlesDocuments like newsletters have articles in them that skip from page to page. These kinds of documents are especially difficult for individuals using screen readers or alternative input devices. Defining articles in your PDF document allows someone to follow the article through the document without having to manually skip from page to page.

4. Step Three: Reading Order • Reading Order.Sometime the content in PDF documents is read out of order by screen readers. This is especially true of documents containing columns. Fixing the reading order of the document will ensure that the content is presented by a screen reader in the correct order.

5. Step Four: Use Semantic Tags • Semantic Tags.Content must be properly tagged so that a screen reader can know what kind of information the content represents. This includes headers, body text, lists, images, backgrounds, and tables. • Documents created with Microsoft Word that are formatted correctly will be tagged correctly

6. Step Five: Text Descriptions • Alternative text descriptions for images.Where the content is an image that conveys information to the reader, an alternative text description should be used to provide the information to the screen reader user. For complex images that require an explanation of more than 255 characters, an appendix can be notated and used.

7. Step Six: Working Links • Working LinksIf your document contains links, for example to a website (HTTP link) or to a location within the document (Anchor link), the links must work. This includes links in the table of contents for a document and any foot or end notes you have used.

8. Step Seven: Color and Contrast • ColorColor cannot be the only way information is conveyed to a reader. For example, if you have a chart in your document, the legend cannot simply have “red” as the color identifying a column. There must be a second visual clue for the reader for example using a “checkerboard” pattern on the column. • ContrastIf you use background colors or images, there should be ample contrast between the background and foreground text

9. Step Eight: Fonts and Spacing • Fonts, Sizing and SpacingAre the fonts you are using clear and legible? Avoid using fancy fonts that are more decorative than functional.The body text in your document should be big enough so that it does not present a problem for individuals with limited vision. Usually this means font sizes between 10 and 14 pointsThe spacing in the document should be enough to show paragraph breaks clearly. Spacing between lines should be at least 120% of the fonts size. The is the default in Word.

10. Eight Steps ToCreating Accessible PDF Documents California State University Fullerton Campus Information Technology Training Timothy Benbow