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Creating tagged PDF documents
With the release of Adobe Acrobat version 5.0, Adobe has taken great strides in making PDF documents more accessible to people with disabilities. Prior versions offered little in terms of the creation of structured, readable documents that could be translated by assistive technologies. Now, with the help of new accessibility tools, documents are much easier to make accessible. (Note: these tools will not work with PDFs that are scanned as image files. For accessibility, scans should be done in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) format.)
In order to utilize the Adobe accessibility features, you need the full version of Adobe Acrobat 5.0 (not the standard Acrobat Reader) and the Make Accessible Plug-in, which is a free download from Adobe. The plug-in tool analyzes the logical structure of a document and creates a new, tagged Adobe PDF file that reads more clearly with a screen reader or other assistive technology device. Once the tags are created by the plug-in, you can then add alternative text to non-text elements. Follow the steps below to easily create an accessible tagged PDF document.
Note: If you save a PDF from Microsoft Word, Powerpoint or Excel 2000, a tagged document structure is automatically created if you have the Make Accessible Plug-in and Acrobat version 5.0.
Creating the Tags
- Open Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and open the document you wish to make accessible.
- Select Document, Make Accessible. This step creates the tags and the document structure.
- To view the newly created tags, Select Window, Tags.
- Navigate through the document structure until you find a <figure> tag. To add alternative text, Right click on <figure> and select Element Properties. This will bring up the Element Properties Box.
- In the Alternative Text box, add a text description of the image. Do this for each <figure> element within the tagged structure. You can ignore images that are decorative (i.e. borders) in nature as these do not need alternative text.
To associate a <Figure> tag with its respective image in the document, do the following:
- In the Tags Window, select a <Figure> tag.
- Right click and select "Turn on Associated Content Highlighting". When this feature is turned on images within the document are highlighted. In order to add alternative text you have to turn this feature off by right clicking on a <Figure> tag and select "Turn off Associated Content Highlighting". Right click again on <figure> and select Element Properties. This will bring up the Element Properties Box to enable you to enter the alternative text.
- To associate the next image, select the next <Figure> tag. You can continue through the document in this manner to ensure you are associating the correct image with its associated <Figure> tag.
Once you have added all of the necessary alternative text, the next step is to verify your document by running the Accessibility Checker.
Running the Accessibility Checker
The accessibility checker looks for potential problems within your PDF document. It is important to note , that the accessibility checker can pick up items that you can safely ignore (i.e. images without alternative text that are purely decorative in nature or if a running header is not part of the structured tree). After using the Accessibility checker, it is recommended that you test your document using a screen reader.
Select Tools, Accessibility Checker. The Accessibility Checker Options box will appear.
Under the Options Section, select "create logfile" or select "create comments in document". The second option adds comment flags throughout the document so you can visually see the potential accessibility problems. Under the Pages section, make sure "all pages" is selected. Under the Check for section it is usually, not necessary to select all of the items. It depends on the makeup of your document. If your document is mostly text-based and only contains a few images, then you will probably be safe only checking for Alternate descriptions provided. Listed below are the options in more detail.
Alternate descriptions provided - You should always include this option in your check to see if alternative text has been added to all image elements or non-text elements. Remember, you can ignore images that are decorative (i.e. borders) in nature as these do not need alternative text. Text language specified - Select this option if the document contains more than one language. If your document has more than one language you will need to specify this in the Element Properties box Reliable character encoding - Choose this option if your document includes special font characters. This option checks to make sure that these characters include Unicode values that will provide additional information as to what the character represents. All content contained in document structure - This option searches for any content that is not within the tagged structure of the document. Form fields have descriptions - If your document is a form or contains form fields, you will need to add form field descriptions.
- Lastly, view the log file or comments within your document, depending on which option you chose, to see if there are any issues regarding the accessibility of your document.
For additional information on accessibility and PDFs, read "How to Create Accessible Adobe PDF Files" or go to access.adobe.com
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