Creating Universally Designed PDFs from Microsoft Office with Adobe Acrobat Overview This article offers guidance on ways to create PDF documents to make them more accessible. Because many files are often viewed electronically, governments and industries around the world are implementing policies requiring electronic and information technology to be accessible to people with disabilities. For example, the amended Section 508 of the United States Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires Federal agencies to make all of their electronic and information technology accessible. It is simple to convert Microsoft Office documents to PDF using Adobe Acrobat, but not all PDFs are created equally. A universally designed PDF is created in a way that allows various types of technology to interact with it. This means that readers can select the text, copy and paste, search the document, navigate it using a Table of Contents or just a keyboard, and listen to it using text to speech or screen reading software. By adding some extra steps to your PDF creation workflow both before and after conversion, you can create documents that are more usable for everyone, including those with disabilities. This guide walks you through the most important aspects of improving your converted PDFs. Before Conversion Make the Source Document Accessible First When converting from Microsoft Office, make the document accessible in the original format first. See our other Quick Start Guides for how to do this in Word 2010, Word 2013, and PowerPoint 2010. Many of the steps taken with the original document will carry over to the PDF when it is created. Configure the Acrobat Toolbar Options 1. Before converting a document, make sure the following setting is checked in your Acrobat toolbar. Click on Acrobat on the Microsoft Office Ribbon, then click on Preferences. 2. Check the checkbox that says Enable Accessibility and Reflow with tagged Adobe PDF if not already checked. 1
Convert to PDF There are three ways to convert to PDF using the Acrobat plugin in Office. Only two of these maintain the work that you have put into your original document. Avoid Print to PDF The Adobe PDF printer that shows up along with your other printers is a bad option for accessibility. It does not save any of the work you have done in the original document. Use one of the two following options instead. Use Save as Adobe PDF Click on File, then Save as Adobe PDF. 2
Use Create PDF A second good option is to use the Acrobat toolbar ribbon. Switch to the Acrobat Ribbon and select Create PDF. After Conversion Once your PDF is created, it should open automatically in Adobe Acrobat. The conversion process is not perfect, so there are a few items to fix within Acrobat itself. Set the Document Title By default, PDFs display the file s name at the top of the page rather than the title. This is the part of the document that screen reading software reads first, so a long or meaningless file name may confuse or frustrate a listener. To fix this: 1. In the File Menu, select Properties. 2. On the Description tab, type the document title in the Title field. 3
3. Switch to the Initial View tab in the same menu. 4. In the Show dropdown menu, change the selection from File Name to Document Title. 4
Set the Document Language Screen readers look at the document properties to determine the pronunciation they should use while reading the document. In order to set the language of your pdf: 1. Click on File and select Properties. 2. In the Advanced Tab of the Properties window, use the Language Drop down Menu to select the language. Note: If your document contains more than one language, set the overall document language to the one most commonly used. You can still mark individual passages to be read in another language. How to do this is beyond the scope of this Quick Start Guide. Check the Reading Order Screen readers and text to speech software look at the Tags of a PDF to determine the correct reading order of the page. Tags define the Document Structure, and also generate a Table of Contents. Unfortunately, Tags generated during conversion are not always in the correct order. This is especially true with images, which are often lumped together at the end of each page. This means they will be described all at once, out of context. To check the Reading Order, use the Check Order Panel in the Accessibility Toolbar. 1. To activate the Accessibility Toolbar, click on View > Tools > Accessibility. 5
2. It will open in the Tools Pane on the right hand side of the document. 3. Expand the Accessibility Toolbar, and select TouchUp Reading Order. 4. In the new window that pops up, click on Show Order Panel. 6
5. The Order Panel will show up in the Navigation Pane on the left side of the screen. Expand a page number to see its tags. These numbers correspond to the boxes that now appear in your document, showing the order in which the items will be read. 6. If they are incorrect, Select and Drag the numbers into the right order using the Order Panel. 7. Check each page in the document, and don t forget to save. 7
Set the Tab Order Some readers use a keyboard to navigate the document instead of a mouse or a screen reader. For keyboard users, the Tab Order is just as important as the Tag Order that you just fixed in the previous section. There is one extra setting to make sure that the two match. 1. In the Page Thumbnails navigation pane on the left side of the document, select all pages. You can do this by Clicking on one of the thumbnails, then simultaneously pressing the Ctrl and A keys. 2. Click on the Page Thumbnail dropdown menu in the navigation pane. Select Page Properties. 8
3. Select the Use Document Structure option: Run an Accessibility Report Finally, Adobe Acrobat has an accessibility checker that will catch problems you may have missed. It also gives instructions on fixing any issues detected. 1. In the Accessibility Toolbar on the right side of the screen, select the option Full Check. (Don t use the Quick Check as it does not detect problems!) 2. Accept the default options for the search and click Start Checking. 9
3. The results are displayed in the Navigation pane on the left side of the document. Expand each category to see more details. (There may be issues detected that are not covered in this guide.) 10
4. If you need more information on fixing an issue, right click on it and select Explain. This opens a Help page on Adobe s website that explains how to fix the problem. Further Resources Accessibility By Design () WebAIM (http://webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/) Adobe In Depth Accessibility Guide (PDF Download) 11