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Portable Document Format (PDF) Accessibility

Portable Document Format (PDF) Accessibility

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All electronic documents we share with the PSU community and with the public—as a part of our services, programs, and activities—must be accessible to people with disabilities.

PDFs created without accessibility in mind can pose significant usability barriers to the 19.4% of adults in the United States with cognition or vision disabilities.

PDF files are tricky! They’re often considered the ideal for publishing and sharing static, secure electronic documents that aren’t mean for collaborative editing or must be distributed in print. The issue is that PDF files are incredibly difficult to render fully accessible to people with disabilities, and worse, they must be re-validated and remediated every time the original document is updated and re-exported to PDF. That’s a lot of work when there are more sustainable format options!

Consider More Accessible Formats

HTML will almost always be a more accessible and sustainable option for information gathering and sharing. However, if there is a clear business use case, a PDF may be appropriate and worth the additional work and ongoing maintenance. We recommend asking yourself the following questions:

  1. Does this resource require fillable form fields?

    • If so, consider a more sustainable HTML format like Google Forms, Onbase, or JSM.

    • If not, or if this resource may also need to be distributed in print, move on to Question 2.

  2. Does this resource need to be distributed in print?

    • If not, consider a more sustainable HTML format like Canvas, Confluence, or Drupal.

    • If so, and the resource does not require fillable form fields, consider a more sustainable, printable web format like a published Google Workspace asset (i.e. Docs, Sheets, or Slides).

    • If so, and the resource does require fillable form fields, it may need to be a PDF file.

Make the Source Document Accessible

If you determine that your digital resource must be a PDF file, then you should begin by making the source document fully accessible. This will minimize the amount of remediation work that you will need to do with professional PDF editing software. Please reference our support resources on Accessible Digital Design and Electronic Document Accessibility to learn how to make your documents accessible before exporting to PDF.

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Export to PDF and Validate Accessibility

Professional PDF editing software like Adobe Acrobat Pro or Foxit PDF Editor+ is required to manipulate properties, reading order, alternative text, tag structure, and form functionality—all required validation and remediation checkpoints to ensure PDF accessibility.

The Easy Way → When you create a source document using an authoring tool that allows for accessible design, you can export to PDF and retain most of the necessary tag structure—making accessibility validation and remediation with Adobe Acrobat Pro or Foxit PDF Editor+ relatively quick and easy.

The Hard Way → When you inherit a PDF, and the source document is unavailable, accessibility validation and remediation may take significant time and effort.

Learn How to Validate and Remediate PDF Files

If you have any additional questions regarding digital accessibility for non-instructional digital resources at PSU, please submit a request for Digital Accessibility Support.

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