Portable Document Format files (PDFs) allow universal access to documents and they should be accessible to all users.
PDFs are commonly created by using another software package such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Cloud. If you have the original source file you should use the file to repair any accessibility issues and create an accessible version of the PDF, alternatively you can use the Adobe Acrobat Pro accessibility features to repair the accessibility issues.
Acrobat Accessibility Checker
Acrobat Pro 2021 has inbuilt accessibility features which allow you to check and fix accessibility problems with PDF files.
View the Adobe accessibility guides: Create and verify PDF accessibility (Acrobat Pro)
All staff have access to the Pro version of Acrobat through AppsAnywhere.
Install Acrobat Pro 2021
Note: you must already have AppsAnywhere installed on you device to be able to launch Acrobat Pro 2021.
Login to AppsAnywhere with your London Met username and password
Scroll down to locate the Acrobat Pro 2021 app, or use the search feature.
Click on the Launch button to load the ‘Cloudpaging Player’ on your desktop
Once the Cloudpaging Player has finished initialising, Acrobat Pro 2021 will open on your desktop.
Switch on the Accessibility Checker
The first time you open Acrobat Pro you will need switch on the Accessibility plugin.
Click on the Tools tab and scroll down the page until you see
the ‘Accessibility’ tool and click ‘Add’
The Accessibility tool now appears in the Tool pane and you can easily access the tool when checking or editing PDF files.
Checking Accessibility
Open your PDF file in Acrobat Pro 2021 and then select the Accessibility button > Accessibility Check
Note: if you are prompted to ‘Buy now’ or ‘Activate’ Acrobat, it is not yet connected to AppsAnywhere. Simply select the x button on the prompt to close the message and click on the Accessibility button again.
The accessibility checker options panel allows you to specify your check criteria. If you have a very large document you may find it helpful to set the page range and check a few pages at a time.
The results are displayed in the Accessibility Checker panel.
Click on the expand icon to view the details of each section. Right click on the issue to access the repair options
Using PDF Tags
A Tag is an essential part of a PDF for accessibility. It provides the document structure and logical reading order for assistive technologies.
If your PDF was created from a MS Word document it may already have automatically generated Tags, if the document is not already tagged it will show the ‘Tagged PDF – Failed‘ message in the Accessibility Checker panel.
Right click the ‘Tagged PDF – Failed‘ message and then select Fix to allow Acrobat to generate Tags.
Once the tags have been generated you will need to check the reading order of the document.
Open the Tags panel to view the document structure and click through each Tag sequentially to view the reading order.
Note: if the Tags panel does not display you should save and close the document, then reopen the file to open the Tags panel.
As you click through each tag it will highlight the section of the document it is associated with.
To edit the Tags or change the reading order click on the options menu at the top of the Tags panel.
