Reference Card for converting Word to Accessible PDF

Adobe released a Reference Card for Accessible PDF Creation from Word. Read the article and download it. This is what I do to ensure my PDFs are accessible.

Why is web site accessibility so important?

Why is web site accessibility so important you might ask? Follow this link to read more on what happened with Target: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080828-target-to-pay-6-million-to-settle-site-accessibility-suit.html

So do you think accessibility is important? I believe it is. Not just for the company's sake, but for those who are disabled or impaired in some way.

Web Accessibility really isn't that hard to learn or apply to your web pages. Most of the time if you follow Web Standards your site should be accessible. But there are a couple more tricks on top of Web Standards that need to be applied or well thought out when designing and developing a web site. WebAIM is a good place to learn more about accessibility.

Test your site to see if it meets accessibility needs.

• Cynthia Says (more techy information)
• Wave (less techy)

Learn How You Can Help With Accessibility

Using Microsoft Office

Create an accessible MS Office document
Find out what accessibility means and how people with disabilities experience your documents. Learn about the different accessibility needs of various people and what you should do to make your documents available to them.

Using Adobe Software

• Accessibility Resource Center
  
  
  
  • Acrobat
  
  
  • Dreamweaver
  
  
  • Fireworks
  
  
  • Flash
  
  
  • InDesign
  
  
  
  

How to use MS Word to create an Accessible PDF

You will need the following software:

• Microsoft Word
• Adobe Acrobat Professional or Standard
  

Anything else will just give you a headache because you will end up working on making the PDFs accessible the hard way. With these two softwares combined, you can create accessible PDFs in minutes.

Here are the steps:

1. Prepare the document for accessible needs:
   
1. Spell out abbreviation's when possible.
   
2. Mark headings with heading 1, heading 2, etc. Setting text as Bold is not a heading.
   
3. Use the list feature when you are listing items.
   
4. Don't use the "Text Box" feature (Insert>Text Box) for it is never accessible.
5. Don't tab or space to create the illusion of a column or table. Use the Column feature (Format>Columns) or Tables (Tables>Draw Table).
6. Avoid using complex tables. Complex tables include those with more than one level of headings. These are very difficult to make accessible. Consider breaking complex tables into a number of smaller tables.
   
7. All images must have an "Alt text". To do so, click the image to select it, right-click and select Format Picture. Select the Web tab and type the required text to describe the image (keep it simple).
   
2. Save the document after changes.
3. Now it's time to save the document as a PDF, but we aren't going to use the old method "print" because it does not tag the document. Tags are needed for screen readers to read the document. Instead we are going to use the "Adobe PDF" add-on in the menu bar.
4. In the menu bar go to Adobe PDF>Convert to Adobe PDF. Save the file to your computer and tada, now you have a tagged PDF document that any screen reader can read.
5. But we aren't finished yet. Open the PDF you created in Adobe Acrobat Professional or Standard and from the menu bar go to File>Properties. Go to the "Advanced" tab and set the "Language" to "English US" and click OK.
6. Now let's test the PDF to make sure it is completely accessible by running an Accessibility Full Check(Professional) or Quick Check(Standard). On the menu bar, go to Advanced> Accessibility>Full Check... or Quick Check.
   
7. For the Full Check... feature, make sure all check boxes are checked and then click "Start Checking"
8. If the PDF is accessible it will says there are no problems.
9. If it found problems with the PDF follow the directions Adobe gives you to fix it or refer to other posts on this website.