Accessible PDFs: How to Make Your Documents Readable by Everyone (Including Screen Readers)

Accessible PDFs: How to Make Your Documents Readable by Everyone (Including Screen Readers)

Imagine not being able to access 90% of the information contained in the PDF documents you receive daily. Yet this is the reality for millions of people with disabilities facing poorly designed PDFs. According to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people live with some form of disability worldwide. Digital accessibility is no longer optional: it's an ethical, legal, and economic necessity.

Creating accessible PDF documents represents much more than simple regulatory compliance. It's an inclusive approach that guarantees equal access to information for all. Whether you're a communications manager, web developer, or content creator, this guide will accompany you in mastering WCAG standards and best practices to transform your PDFs into truly universal documents.

Understanding WCAG 2.1 Level AA Standards for PDFs

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 constitute the international reference for digital accessibility. Developed by the W3C, these guidelines are structured around four fundamental principles that every accessible PDF must respect.

Perceivable: Information must be presented so that all users can perceive it. For a PDF, this means providing text alternatives to images, maintaining sufficient contrast between text and background (minimum ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text), and structuring information logically.

Operable: The document must be navigable by keyboard only. Users must be able to access all interactive content (links, forms, buttons) without a mouse. Tab order must follow a logical and intuitive sequence.

Understandable: Content and interface must be clear and predictable. The document's language must be correctly defined, abbreviations explained, and navigation consistent throughout the document.

Robust: Content must be sufficiently structured to be reliably interpreted by a wide variety of assistive technologies, notably screen readers like JAWS, NVDA, or VoiceOver.

Level AA represents the recommended standard for most organizations. It guarantees a high level of accessibility while remaining technically achievable. In France, this level has been mandatory for all public digital services since the decree of July 24, 2019.

The Invisible Obstacles: What People with Disabilities Really Experience

To understand the importance of PDF accessibility, let's put ourselves in the shoes of different users confronted with poorly designed documents.

Marie, visually impaired, uses screen magnification software. Faced with a scanned PDF without character recognition (OCR), she can neither zoom on text without losing quality nor adjust colors to improve contrast. The document becomes a blurry, illegible image despite her assistive tools.

Ahmed, blind from birth, navigates with the NVDA screen reader. When he opens a PDF without structural tagging, his software reads content in disorder: first a column fragment, then a footnote in the middle of a paragraph, making the document totally incomprehensible. Images without alternative text remain silent, creating gaping holes in the information.

Sophie, severely dyslexic, needs to modify text appearance to facilitate her reading. In a locked or poorly structured PDF, she can't change font, line spacing, or use assisted reading tools. Each page becomes an exhausting challenge.

Thomas, quadriplegic, navigates exclusively by keyboard with a voice command system. PDF forms without properly tagged fields are inaccessible to him. He can neither fill in boxes nor navigate logically between sections, often forcing him to abandon important procedures.

These situations aren't isolated cases. They concern 12 million people in France and illustrate how a poorly designed document can create involuntary but real digital discrimination.

Essential Best Practices for Creating Truly Accessible PDFs

1. Structural Tagging: The Invisible Architecture of Accessibility

Tagging (or tags) constitutes the skeleton of your accessible PDF. It indicates to assistive technologies the nature and hierarchy of each document element.

Start by defining a logical structure with hierarchical headings (H1, H2, H3...). Each heading must be properly tagged, not simply visually formatted. This structure allows users to quickly navigate between sections via their screen reader.

Lists must be tagged as such (L, LI, Lbl, LBody), allowing screen readers to announce the number of elements and current position. Tables require specific tags (Table, TR, TH, TD) with clearly identified column and row headers.

2. Reading Order: Ensuring Logical Navigation

Reading order determines the sequence in which a screen reader traverses the document. In a multi-column PDF, without defined order, the software might read horizontally across columns, mixing content incomprehensibly.

Systematically verify reading order using the "Order" panel in Adobe Acrobat Pro. Reorganize elements to follow natural progression: title, lead, body text, sidebars, footnotes. Decorative elements must be marked as "Artifact" to be ignored by screen readers.

3. Alternative Text: Giving Images a Voice

Every image carrying information must have descriptive alternative text. This text must convey essential information, not describe the image in detail. For a graph showing sales evolution, prefer "Graph: Sales increased 45% between 2023 and 2024" rather than visual description.

Purely decorative images must be marked as artifacts. Complex mathematical formulas require complete textual description or use of MathML for correct reading.

4. Contrast and Readability: Beyond Aesthetics

Insufficient contrast represents one of the most frequent accessibility problems. The minimum contrast ratio between text and its background must be 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text (14 points bold or 18 points normal).

Avoid text on complex images or gradients. Favor sans-serif fonts for screen display and ensure text remains readable even in grayscale. Never use color as the sole means of conveying information.

5. Accessible Forms: Facilitating Interaction

PDF forms often represent a nightmare for assistive technology users. Each field must have an explicit label, descriptive tooltip, and logical tab order.

Use native form fields rather than drawn lines. Group related fields and provide clear instructions. Error messages must be explicit and associated with the concerned field, not only signaled by red color.

Verification Tools and Methods

Creating an accessible PDF requires rigorous validation. Adobe Acrobat Pro offers an integrated accessibility checker that tests WCAG compliance. Run a complete check and systematically correct each identified problem.

PAC 3 (PDF Accessibility Checker) constitutes a free and independent tool for validating accessibility according to PDF/UA standards. It generates a detailed report with visualization of problems directly in the document.

The ultimate test remains actual use with a screen reader. Install NVDA (free) or use Windows Narrator to navigate your document. Verify that reading order is logical, all information is accessible, and keyboard navigation works perfectly.

Involve users with disabilities in your tests. Their feedback is worth all automated tools and reveals problems you wouldn't have anticipated.

Conclusion: Accessibility, an Investment for the Future

Creating accessible PDFs requires initial effort, but benefits far outweigh the investment. Beyond legal compliance and social inclusion, accessibility improves the experience for all users. A well-structured document is more easily indexable, convertible, and reusable.

Digital accessibility isn't a technical constraint but an opportunity for innovation and excellence. Each accessible document you create contributes to building a more inclusive web where information remains a fundamental right, not a privilege.

Start today: choose an important document from your organization and apply these best practices. Train your teams, integrate accessibility into your creation processes, and make digital inclusion a core value of your communication.

FAQ: Your Questions About PDF Accessibility

What is the difference between PDF/UA and WCAG for accessibility?

PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) is the ISO standard specific to PDF documents, defining technical requirements for creating accessible PDFs. WCAG covers web accessibility in general, including PDFs embedded in web pages. Both standards are complementary: PDF/UA guarantees technical structure, WCAG ensures content accessibility. For complete compliance, aim for both standards.

How do I make an existing scanned PDF accessible?

Start by applying optical character recognition (OCR) to convert the image to editable text. Use Adobe Acrobat Pro or similar tools offering quality OCR. Then manually add structural tagging, define reading order, and add alternative texts to images. This transformation takes time but remains essential for accessibility.

Are PDFs created from Word or Google Docs automatically accessible?

Only partially. These tools generally preserve basic structure (headings, lists) during PDF export, but complete accessibility requires adjustments. Always verify reading order, add missing alternative texts, and test with an accessibility checker. Microsoft Word offers an integrated accessibility checker to use before export.

What budget should I plan for making my PDFs accessible?

Cost varies depending on complexity and volume. Initial team training represents 2-3 days. Remediation of a simple PDF takes 30 minutes to 2 hours, a complex document up to a day. Investment in professional tools (Adobe Acrobat Pro) costs about €20/month per user. Consider this budget as an investment in quality and legal compliance, not an expense.

Is PDF accessibility mandatory for my company?

In France, all public services and companies with more than €250 million turnover must comply with accessibility standards. Beyond legal obligation, accessibility represents a competitive advantage: it expands your audience, improves your SEO, and demonstrates your social commitment. The European accessibility directive will progressively extend these obligations to more companies by 2025.