Prerequisites
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
Accessibility Demo 2024
PDFs and Screen Readers
Demo 1
March Break Activity Poster
Instructions
- Open the PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Use Acrobat's Read Out Loud feature to read the document.
🔽 Accessibility Problems (Click to Reveal)
🔽 How to Fix (Click to Reveal)
-
No alternative text for the poster image.
Alternative text is used to describe the content of an image. When no alternative text is available, nothing is communicated to screen reader users.
-
Offer an alternative version of the poster's
text.
If the poster will be shared on the Internet, offer the text from the poster as text on a webpage. That text will be more easily processed by a screen reader. -
Export to PDF using a tool that accepts alternative
text.
Transforming an image directly to a PDF gives no opportunity to add descriptive text. If the image must be inside of a PDF, consider inserting the image into a Word document, and adding the alternative text in Word, then saving the document as a PDF.
Demo 2
Children's Programming Newsletter
Prerequisites
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
Instructions
- Open the PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Use Acrobat's Read Out Loud feature to read the document.
🔽 Accessibility Problems (Click to Reveal)
🔽 How to Fix (Click to Reveal)
-
Screen reader reading order is not correct.
Desktop publishing tools, like Microsoft Publisher, order content in the order it is added to the document. That doesn't always correspond to how the content should be read in the end. -
No alternative text for informative images.
Alternative text is used to describe the content of an image. When no alternative text is available, nothing is communicated to screen reader users. While some images are purely decorative and do not require alternative text descriptions, the sponsor logo images are treated like parts of a sentence.
-
Sort the reading order of the document.
Use Adobe Acrobat Pro or the free PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker) tool to ensure the content is properly ordered. -
Consider structuring the document linearly or using
proper columns.
Word documents support columns that ensure document content stays ordered. -
Add alternative text to the informative images.
The alternative text for the sponsor logo images should be the sponsor names. Decorative images should not include alternative text.
Demo 3
Cemetery Burial Charges
Prerequisites
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
Instructions
- Open the PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Use Acrobat's Read Out Loud feature to read the document.
🔽 Accessibility Problems (Click to Reveal)
🔽 How to Fix (Click to Reveal)
-
Scanned text not properly recognized.
Although it is possible to create PDF documents using office photocopiers, it should be avoided. The content made available to screen readers, if anything, is often littered with typos, and structural information, like table structures, are lost. Whenever possible, PDF documents should be created from the application that created the document.
-
Create PDF documents from the original document's
application.
Most applications have the ability to export documents as PDFs. When the function is not available through the application itself, using a PDF printer is the next best solution.