SAIF: Making Information Accessible

Guidelines for producing accessible printed and electronic information

Converting Word Documents into Accessible PDFs (Portable Document Formats)

  • Use an accessible Word document as your source document.
  • Use Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 (or above) or the built-in facility in Word 2007.  Earlier versions or other PDF makers may not produce accessible documents. 
  • Ensure ‘enable accessibility and reflow with tagged PDF’ is checked in the document conversion settings.
  • After conversion, use the Adobe Accessibility Checker to check for possible problems.
  • If available, use a screen reader to check the reading order and to check that all the content is accessible.
  • When posting PDFs on the web, add a link to Adobe Acrobat reader www.adobe.com/uk/products/reader and post an alternative version in Word or Plain Text.  Ideally also provide the information as an HTML webpage.

For tutorials on these 2 sections go to: www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/acrobat/training.html

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Accessible website design and development by Jim Byrne.