InDesign Accessibility | A conversation with Colleen Gratzer
Today’s blog post explores how designers can create more accessible source documents in Adobe InDesign, avoid common production problems, and build accessibility into the workflow from the start.
The post draws from a conversation with accessibility expert Colleen Gratzer, which focused on how accessibility is commonly viewed as a technical task that belongs at the end of a project. Teams finish the design, secure approval, export the PDF, and send it to an accessibility specialist.
However, when designers consider accessibility during production, they make stronger design decisions, reduce remediation time, and create documents that more people can use.
Video Guide
Start Accessibility During the Design Stage
Accessibility works best as part of the design process.
When a specialist reviews a file after the client approves it, accessibility issues can force visual changes. The document might contain low color contrast, incorrect reading order, inaccessible tables, or text trapped inside images.
The designer must then revise work that everyone already considered complete.
Early accessibility review helps teams catch problems with:
- Color contrast
- Heading structure
- Reading order
- Tables and lists
- Images
- Navigation
Technical work continues after export, but designers should address visual and structural issues before final approval.
This approach protects the schedule and budget while giving the designer more room to solve problems without compromising the layout.
Build the File with Paragraph Styles
Paragraph styles create the foundation for an accessible InDesign document. They control the formatting of an entire paragraph, including the typeface, font size, weight, color, spacing, alignment, and export tag. Designers should create separate styles for content with different purposes, such as document and chapter titles, section headings, body text, lists, tables, captions, pull quotes, and Table of Contents entries.
Styles make documents easier to update, keep formatting consistent, and help InDesign create meaningful PDF tags. For example, a designer can map a heading style to an H2 tag and body text to a paragraph tag, giving the exported PDF a clearer structure.
Manual formatting creates extra work. A long document with only a few paragraph styles and many local overrides forces an accessibility specialist to identify and rebuild headings, paragraphs, captions, and lists. Designers can avoid much of that work by creating and applying styles correctly from the beginning.
Use Character Styles for Limited Changes
Character styles serve a different purpose from paragraph styles. A paragraph style applies to the complete paragraph, while a character style applies only to selected words or characters. Use character styles for small changes such as bold emphasis, italics, superscript, hyperlinks, and drop caps.
When a body paragraph contains one bold phrase, the paragraph should keep its body-text style while the bold phrase receives a character style. Applying a character style to the entire paragraph creates unnecessary overrides and makes the file harder to manage. Let the paragraph style control the paragraph, and use a character style only where the text needs a specific variation.
Use InDesign's Built-In Features
Many accessibility problems begin when designers manually recreate features that InDesign already provides. Manual creation can look correct while weakening the document structure.
Use InDesign’s native tools for:
- Tables
- Tables of Contents
- Parent pages
- Bulleted and numbered lists
- Paragraph rules and shading
A native table preserves rows, columns, and cells. A generated Table of Contents connects to heading styles and updates when the document changes. Paragraph shading creates a background without adding another decorative object to the page.
Using the software as intended makes the file easier to maintain and gives the exported PDF a stronger foundation.
It also reduces the number of separate objects that someone must remove from the tag structure or mark as decorative.
Control Reading Order
A page can look logical to a sighted reader and still produce a confusing reading sequence in the exported PDF.
This problem appears in brochures, reports, and infographic-style layouts. A designer adds several frames, deletes one, and inserts another. The page looks correct, but the internal order no longer matches the visual order.
Several InDesign features help manage this:
- Threaded text frames: Use threaded frames for running text that continues across pages. They create a clear flow from one frame to the next.
- The Articles panel: Use the Articles panel to organize separate pieces of content into a logical tag order. It works well for short publications and layouts with independent text frames.
- The Layers panel: Review the Layers panel to control object order and influence the sequence exposed in the PDF.
Designers should review all three areas instead of trusting the visual layout alone.
Create a Clear Heading Structure
Headings help readers understand how the document is organized. They also allow screen-reader users to move between sections.
Choose heading levels based on meaning rather than appearance.
A typical structure includes:
- H1 for the document or chapter title
- H2 for a major section
- H3 for a subsection
- H4 for a deeper subsection
A large publication can use more than one H1. Each major chapter can begin with an H1 when that structure fits the content. A short document can use one H1 and continue with lower heading levels.
The hierarchy must remain logical. Marking every prominent line as H1 removes the relationships between sections and makes navigation less useful.
Export a Tagged PDF
A PDF needs tags to communicate its structure to assistive technology. Tags identify content such as headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, figures, and links.
An untagged PDF can look complete on screen while providing little useful structure to a screen reader. An accessibility reviewer also cannot properly assess the reading order or semantic relationships.
Before exporting, designers should:
- Enable tagged PDF export
- Map paragraph styles to the correct tags
- Include bookmarks where appropriate
- Preserve hyperlinks
- Confirm document language and metadata
A tagged export still requires review. The PDF can contain incorrect nesting, missing tags, broken lists, or content in the wrong order.
Tagged export creates the starting structure. Manual testing confirms that the structure works.
Build Real Tables
Tables create some of the most difficult accessibility problems in a document.
A native InDesign table gives the content a stronger foundation because it preserves the relationship between rows, columns, and cells.
InDesign allows designers to identify header rows at the top of a table. These rows usually act as column headers.
Complex tables can also require row headers in the first column. InDesign does not provide every control needed to define those relationships, so an accessibility specialist must finish the work in the PDF or use a plugin.
Tables become harder to interpret when they contain:
- Merged cells
- Multiple header rows
- Subheaders
- Irregular layouts
- Content that continues across pages
Designers should simplify tables where possible and avoid constructing them from separate text boxes and lines.
Keep Important Text Live
Infographics combine illustrations, labels, statistics, and short explanations.
When a designer places an entire infographic as one image, the text inside it becomes unavailable to users unless the document provides an equivalent text alternative.
Keep essential wording as live text whenever possible.
Live text allows users to search the content, enlarge it clearly, and access it through the document structure. Designers can also place it in the correct reading order.
Complex graphics need more than a short image description. A chart or infographic can require a nearby explanation or an accessible data table.
The design must communicate the same essential information to people who cannot see the image.
Test Color Contrast Early
Teams frequently discover color contrast problems after the client approves the design. Brand colors create a common challenge. A color combination may work well in a logo but fail when used as text on a white background, forcing the designer to darken the color, change the background, increase the text size, or use the brand color as a decorative accent.
Because these changes can alter the look and feel of the design, teams should test color combinations while building the visual system. This includes headings, body text, links, buttons, and any information conveyed through color. Early testing gives the team more options and reduces the risk of a major redesign later.
Use Automation Carefully
Automation can support parts of the accessibility workflow. Tools can suggest alternative text, identify possible headings, or flag visual issues.
Every result still needs human review.
Automated tools struggle with complex tables, unusual layouts, lists that continue across pages, and graphics that depend on context.
Generated alt text can describe what appears in an image while missing why the image matters.
A useful description communicates the meaning of the image rather than listing visible objects.
Designers and accessibility specialists must review automated output and make the final decisions. Tools can save time, but they cannot replace an understanding of the content or the user experience.
Accessible PDFs Are Possible
PDFs support accessibility when designers build them with meaningful structure.
An accessible PDF includes:
- Proper tags
- Logical reading order
- Useful headings
- Alternative text
- Bookmarks
- Descriptive links
- Structured lists and tables
Many PDFs remain inaccessible because no one created them with these features in mind.
The quality of the final document depends on how the team designs, exports, reviews, and maintains it.
Accessibility Strengthens Design Practice
Accessibility strengthens design practice by helping designers explain their decisions through readability, structure, and user access. It also creates opportunities to specialize in areas such as visual accessibility, tagged PDF production, remediation, testing, and training.
Designers control the colors, headings, tables, images, and page structure that determine whether people can read, navigate, and understand a document. By using paragraph styles, native InDesign features, intentional reading order, early contrast testing, tagged export, and manual review, they can reduce remediation work and create a stronger experience for every reader.
About Colleen Gratzer
Colleen Gratzer is an award-winning designer with almost 30 years of experience in print design, web design, and development.
Since 2016, she has specialized in accessibility, with a strong focus on accessible InDesign-to-PDF workflows.
Through Creative Boost, Colleen teaches accessibility in plain English to designers and developers. She also hosts the Design Domination podcast and provides design and accessibility services through Gratzer Graphics.
About The Accessibility Guy Podcast
The Accessibility Guy Podcast explores real projects, practical challenges, and the ways accessibility laws, standards, technology, procurement, AI, education, and lived experience shape accessibility work.
The podcast features voices from across the field, including accessibility professionals, developers, designers, educators, government leaders, assistive technology experts, and people with lived experience.
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