How to Make PDFs Accessible | Episode 20: San Jose City College

Digital accessibility plays a vital role in creating inclusive educational environments. Episode 20 of our Making PDFs Accessible series is a step-by-step walkthrough of how to remediate a scanned PDF from San Jose City College. We’ll convert it from a completely inaccessible image-based file into a fully accessible digital document.

Video Guide

If you are interested in the real-life practice and nuances of document remediation, please check out the other posts in our Making College PDFs Accessible series.

Initial Assessment

We’re using “Classified Senate Roles.pdf” downloaded from the San Jose City College website. The file appears as a one-page scanned image. It lacks selectable text, contains no structural tags, and provides no metadata for screen readers, making it highly inaccessible.

Let’s make this PDF accessible!

Scan & OCR to Recognize Text

First, run Adobe Acrobat’s Scan & OCR tool to enable content recognition. This process converts image-based content into selectable, searchable text. This is the foundation for any further tagging and remediation.

Auto-Tag and Manual Tag Structure Refinement

After text recognition, the Prepare for Accessibility Auto-tagger tool automatically applies structural tags. These tags offer a basic layout but require manual refinement. The remediation process includes:

• Converting the first paragraph to a Heading 1 for logical structure.
• Marking random, irrelevant characters as artifacts to exclude them from accessibility tools.
• Identifying and correcting an improperly tagged table.

Table Remediation

The table receives significant manual revision:

• Convert cells labeled as TD (table data) to TH (table headers).
• Set each cell’s scope correctly to reflect row or column headers.
• Adjust row and column spans where necessary.
• Move text placed in the wrong cells to the correct locations.

The goal is to ensure accurate navigation for users relying on screen readers.

Repair List Structures

The document contains broken and fragmented lists resulting from the scan. These lists require the following adjustments:

• Consolidate multiple fragmented lists into a single logical list.
• Properly apply label (LBL) and list body (LBody) tags.
• Remove unnecessary parent tags.
• Ensure consistent formatting and readable order across list elements.

Run the Accessibility Checker

With our tag structure in place, Adobe’s Accessibility Checker and the PAC 2024 tool identified several issues.

Let’s address each problem individually:

• Add a document title.
• Mark non-informative path elements as artifacts.
• Add a table summary.
• Embed missing fonts using Adobe’s Preflight tool.
• Correct a role mapping error. A list body tag was incorrectly labeled with lowercase letters to “LBody”.

After final adjustments, the document passes all checks in both Adobe’s Accessibility Checker and the PAC tool. All structural tags, headers, metadata, and fonts comply with WCAG accessibility standards.

Evaluation of the Original Document

The Accessibility Guy gives this PDF an accessibility rating of zero out of ten. As a scanned image without selectable text or tagging, it fails to meet any basic accessibility criteria. Institutions should avoid uploading documents in this format unless they undergo proper remediation.

Let me be your champion for inclusion. I offer tailored solutions (and self-paced courses!) to ensure your documents meet and exceed compliance expectations. For more detailed insights, tutorials, and in-depth discussions on accessibility and related topics, don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel: The Accessibility Guy on YouTube. Subscribe for regular updates!