Refer to this article to effectively organize your PDF course documents as you initiate the process of addressing potential digital accessibility issues.

Step one: Organize your documents

• Gather a list of the current documents (or planned/future documents) you will use for a specific course or website. (See an example table at the end of this article.)
• Determine which documents are used, by frequency and importance. For example, focus on the syllabus before supplementary, non-required readings. This step should also include determining if any material can be archived or deleted. Instructors should use the TidyUp tool to identify unused files in their ELMS-Canvas course.

NOTE: Archival status is not determined by year, but rather by frequency of access and whether it is being used in any current processes. 

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Step two: Use automated accessibility checkers in the original platform

If you have the original document (Word, PowerPoint, Google Slides, Google Docs, etc.), use the Microsoft accessibility assistant and Grackle for Google automated checkers to review and make sure that the Six Essential Steps are followed. Focus on the accessibility of:

Headings

• For Word/Google Docs, use Headings 1 through 6 as needed.
• For PowerPoints/Google Slides, the title slide serves as Heading 1.
  • Titles serve as headings in subsequent presentation slides.

Links

• Make sure that links are descriptive. If the document is properly exported, links should show up properly in PDFs.
  • To check that all links export correctly, tab through the document and make sure that all links show up in that order.

Color and contrast

• Color and contrast should be checked before you export to a PDF.
• Use the Colour Contrast Analyzer to manually check.

Images

• You can add alt text either before or after you export to a PDF.
• In Google and Microsoft, you can add alt text by right-clicking on the image and selecting the option that reads Alt Text.
• Always check your alt text! A lot of images will come with alt text pre-populated, but that alt text is often incorrect or not informative.

Tables

• Be sure to use the Insert Table tool to create tables in documents and slides.
• Do not split or merge cells in the table.

Media

• Make sure any media you add to presentation slides has accurate captions.

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Step three: Export to PDF

Once you’ve reviewed your original documents, properly re-export them to PDFs using the preferred method by platform, as follows:

Google Slides: Download as a PowerPoint file

Download as a PowerPoint file, then follow the steps below for PowerPoint.
NOTE: Do not download the PDF directly from Google Slides! This will cause the slides to delete content once you try to make things accessible in Adobe.

PowerPoint

• Open in PowerPoint and Save as PDF from there, Or
• Open the PowerPoint directly in Adobe Acrobat Pro (desktop client).

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Step four: Use the Adobe Acrobat Pro Accessibility Checker on all your PDFs

This tool will tell you all of the remaining issues with your PDF. If you go through the Six Essential Steps above and properly export the PDF, there should only be a few issues.

• Focus on the issues below first. You should be able to answer Yes to the following questions on all PDFs before you focus on the more nuanced issues. (As long as you properly export the PDF, the answer should automatically be Yes to both.) If not, you can use the Guided Action Make Accessible to fix those issues:
  • Is the PDF tagged?
  • Is the PDF OCR’d?

Instructors should note that tagging and OCR’ing your PDFs will significantly increase the Ally course accessibility score and will also give basic accessibility to students while you work through the nuanced accessibility aspects.

• With your PDFs tagged and OCR’d, you can work through the more nuanced issues:
  • Review the other issues found in the Accessibility Checker.
  • Check out our Recorded Trainings – we have a PDF Basics and a PDF Beyond the Basics that should help you walk through some of the more nuanced issues.
  • If you’ve gone through both the trainings and cannot figure out an issue, email itaccessibility@umd.edu.

PDFs in Ally and Siteimprove

Both Siteimprove (a UMD-licensed tool that evaluates web accessibility) and Ally have features that evaluate PDF accessibility in a limited capacity. While these may be helpful tools to utilize as reference points, prioritize using Adobe to determine if your PDFs are accessible. This prioritization can help to reduce the chance of false accessibility issue alerts through either program. Keep a separate list, as shown in the table below, to document once the key PDF accessibility features are in place.

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Sample PDF list/table

Your list of documents does not need to be elaborate, but it should serve as a useful way for you to track potential accessibility issues, as in the following example.

Support and resources

• Using TidyUp to Manage Files and Content in ELMS-Canvas (KB article)
• Create an Accessible PDF with Microsoft Word (KB article)
• Adobe Acrobat Pro PDF Remediation Software (UMD record training)
• Introduction to Creating Accessible PDFs (LinkedIn Learning course)
• Adobe Pro DC Setup and Workspace (LinkedIn Learning video)
• Equidox PDF Remediation Tool
• SensusAccess Document Remediation Tool
• Ally ELMS-Canvas Accessibility Tool
• UMD Digital Accessibility Recordings & Upcoming Training Opportunities

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