PDFs and Word documents are often not formatted to meet ADA guidelines for accessibility.
Below are the common PDFs errors that Guide will flag and how you can correct them:
Error | Fix | |
If a PDF is |
Is found in a Links List or Text Block |
Your PDF document must be tested manually to determine if it is accessible or not. You can do this with the PAVE tools - pave-pdf.org. To correct this issue, open the original document in Word and ensure that all of your images have Alt Text added, and that your document is formatted and organized with proper use of Headings. Where a PDF is needed, you should ensure that the PDF is created to be accessible. This is now an option in Adobe Acrobat and in newer versions of Word when you save files as a PDF.
For PDFs and Word documents in Adobe and Microsoft Word, here are articles on how to use Microsoft Word's Accessibility Checker tool and saving your properly formatted documents in an accessible format:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/create-accessible-pdfs-064625e0-56ea-4e16-ad71-3aa33bb4b7ed
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/creating-accessible-pdfs.html |