Documents: PDFs

PDF Accessibility

PDFs often have significant accessibility issues. Common sources of inaccessible PDFs include:

These problems complicate navigation for everyone but particularly impact assistive technology users.

Consider whether your document should be a PDF. Perhaps it would be better suited as a web page or a read-only Google Doc.

There are ways to remediate existing PDFs, but it is always better to have accessibility built into a document before converting it to a PDF.

Learn how to make documents accessible using the following apps:

Start Over (recommended): If possible, recreate documents in Google Docs or Word for easy editing and quick export to accessible PDFs.
Adobe Acrobat Pro: Using Acrobat Pro's accessibility toolset requires significant time and learning.

Third-party remediation software
Often third-party PDF accessibility software is very expensive and is practical only for large-scale accessibility conversion. However, they do make the process a little easier.
- Allyant CommonLook PDF (Windows only). Plug-in for Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.
- Equidox (recommended) ≈ $1,000 per user account. Online-based self-service tool. More easy to use, but still complicated.
Vendor remediation services [NYU Login Required]