Quick Steps to Make PDFs Accessible
The accessibility of PDFs must start with ensuring that the original document, such as a Word document or PowerPoint presentation, are built in an accessible way. Please refer to UTK’s Develop Accessible Documents for steps that should be followed in creating an accessible original document.
These steps below are similar for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
Office 2016
- Select File > Info > Check for Issues > Check Accessibility
- Work through the accessibility report, fixing all accessibility issues before saving as PDF
Office 2019 and later
- In ribbon, select Review > Check Accessibility
- Work through the accessibility report, fixing all accessibility issues before saving Word document as PDF
- File > Info > Properties > Title
- Office’s Accessibility Checker does not catch missing title errors, but Adobe’s Accessibility Checker will
- File > Options > Language
- Office’s Accessibility Checker does not catch missing language errors, but Adobe’s Accessibility Checker will
- •Right click on the image
- •Select “View Alt Text”
- •Add alt text in text box. Once alt text is entered in text box, the “Approve alt text”
- •If you approve of the AI-generated alt text, click checkbox to left of “Approve alt text”
- •If image is decorative, click checkbox to left of “Mark as decorative”
These instructions will create tagged PDF files:
- Select File > Save A Copy
- Click on “More options…”
- Select PDF from the drop down and ensure that “Standard (publishing online and printing) is selected.
- Click on “Save” to save as PDF
- Click on Options button
- In popup window, ensure that “Document structure tags for accessibility” is checked – this allows the tags from Microsoft Word to carry over to the PDF
- Click OK and then Save
