How to Make PDFs Accessible | Episode 9: West Hills College Leemore

Welcome to episode nine on community college PDF accessibility. Today, we focus on West Hills College Leemore’s 2023-2024 Instructional Calendar.

Video Guide

If you’re interested in the real-life practice and nuances of document remediation, here are Episode 1, Episode 2,  Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 10, Episode 11, Episode 12, Episode 13, Episode 14, Episode 15, Episode 16, and Episode 17 in our PDF Accessibility Community College Series.

Understanding PDF Accessibility Challenges

Difficulty in Locating Accessible PDFs

Our first challenge is finding PDFs on West Hills College Leemore’s website. The initial search yielded no results, indicating either a lack of PDFs or a website search function not optimized for such queries. This highlights a common problem where accessible documents are either scarce or not easily locatable, hindering the ability of people with disabilities to access information.

Inadequate Tagging of PDF Documents

The PDF lacked a comprehensive structure, including the absence of a document tag. Proper tagging is crucial for screen readers to interpret and navigate a document. This partial tagging reflects a widespread issue where documents are only minimally accessible, not meeting the needs of all users.

Technical Challenges with Adobe Acrobat

We used an older version of Adobe Acrobat for this Episode, which changed the usual workflow. This points to a broader issue where accessibility work can depend heavily on specific software versions, potentially limiting the effectiveness of accessibility efforts if the latest tools are unavailable.

Issues with Content Representation

Content must be properly formatted for accessibility. For example, acronyms like “TH” for Thursday might not be correctly interpreted by screen readers. This issue underlines the importance of clear and explicit content presentation for accessibility.

Problems with Automated Tools

Despite making several manual adjustments, we found discrepancies when running the PDF through an accessibility checker. It indicates untagged text objects, suggesting that automated tools might not always accurately reflect the accessibility status of a document. This reveals a limitation in relying solely on automated checks for accessibility compliance.

Importance of Saving Changes

Remember to save the PDF before testing it with an accessibility tool, to ensure correct results. This demonstrates the importance of following proper procedures in accessibility work to avoid misinterpretation of a document’s accessibility status.

Download the Free Section 508 Checklist for PDF Accessibility:

Challenges with Tagging and Re-tagging

Making this PDF accessible involved extensive manual tagging, re-tagging, and artifacting of elements within the PDF. This labor-intensive process underscores the lack of streamlined, efficient methods for ensuring PDF accessibility, highlighting a need for more user-friendly tools and methods in accessibility work.

Missing PDF/UA Identifier

Always ensure your PDF meets PDF/UA (PDF/Universal Accessibility) standards, which are crucial for making PDFs accessible to assistive technologies. Head to Adobe Acrobat’s Preflight menu and use the “Print Production” tool. Select “Preflight,” and then use the single fix feature to search for and set the PDF/UA-1 entry.

Today’s journey to PDF accessibility highlights several challenges faced in the field of digital accessibility. These include difficulties in locating accessible documents, partial or improper tagging, dependency on specific software versions, limitations of automated tools, and the labor-intensive nature of ensuring document accessibility. Addressing these issues is crucial for creating an inclusive digital environment where information is accessible to all.

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!