How to Use the Guided Actions Tool in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

Today’s post is a step-by-step guide to the Make Accessible Guided Actions tool in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. This feature provides a structured way to start making a PDF accessible, especially when working with scanned, image-based documents that contain no tags or selectable text.

Video Guide

The example file used in the companion video is a scanned image PDF. It has no tags and no accessibility structure, which makes it a good candidate for the Guided Action workflow.

Accessing the Guided Actions Tool

Start by opening the All Tools menu in Acrobat Pro DC. From there, select Use Guided Actions.

If you do not see Guided Actions near the top of the tools list, scroll down and drag it into a more visible position. Acrobat allows you to customize your tools panel, which makes frequent workflows easier to access.

Once inside Guided Actions, select Make Accessible. Acrobat displays a predefined set of steps designed to guide you through the accessibility process. These steps can be edited, but the default sequence works well as a starting point.

Select Start to begin.

1: Set Document Metadata

The first step prompts you to review and set document metadata:

Title
Author
Subject
Keywords

These fields help screen reader users understand what the document is before reading the content. If the metadata is already complete, you can leave it unchanged and select OK.

2: Recognize Text with OCR

Next, Acrobat asks you to recognize text using OCR.

Leave the default settings unless the document language is something other than English. When you select OK, Acrobat runs Optical Character Recognition and extracts text from the scanned image. This step converts visual text into real, selectable text that assistive technology can read.

3: Identify Form Fields

Acrobat then asks whether the document contains form fields.

If the document does not include forms, you can skip this step. If it does, Acrobat suggests form fields to add that can be tagged correctly later.

4: Set the Reading Language

After that, Acrobat prompts you to set the document’s reading language. Choose the primary language used in the file. This ensures screen readers pronounce words correctly.

5: Add Alternate Text for Images

Acrobat then checks for images and asks whether you want to add alternate text.

In our video example, Acrobat finds no images and skips the step automatically. If images were present, Acrobat would prompt you here to add alternate text descriptions.

6: Run the Accessibility Checker

The final step is to run the Accessibility Checker.

Select all 32 categories so Acrobat checks tables and includes a table summary. Start the check to generate a report of accessibility issues and warnings.

The report provides useful information, but the more important next step happens outside the checker.

Review the Tags Panel

After the Guided Action tool finishes, the document now contains tags. This is a key improvement over the original scanned file.

Open the Tags panel and review the structure manually. Check headings, reading order, lists, and tables.

The Guided Action tool creates a foundation, but it does not complete the remediation work. Manual review and correction are still required to make the document fully accessible.

Automate Accessibility with DocAccess

If you need PDF accessibility at scale, consider a tool like DocAccess for the PDFs hosted on your website.

With one click, DocAccess converts PDFs into accessible HTML. The converted version includes:

High-quality OCR
A clear heading structure
Detailed alternate text for images
Page count information
Full screen reader compatibility

The tool also provides a document outline based on detected headings. You can ask questions about the document and translate the content into more than 150 languages.

The Guided Action tool in Acrobat and automated tools like DocAccess both show practical ways to move inaccessible PDFs toward usable, readable content for everyone.

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!