A step-by-step walkthrough for making PDF documents accessible and compliant with WCAG and PDF/UA standards.
Set the document language
Helps screen readers pronounce content correctly
Setting the document language ensures assistive technologies select the correct pronunciation rules and language-specific character rendering.
In Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Open File → Properties
- Click the Advanced tab
- Under Reading Options, set Language (e.g.
en-US) - Click OK and save
In PAC 2024 / PDF Accessibility Checker
- Open the document and run a check
- Look for “Document language not set” error
- Fix via Acrobat as described above
Use IETF BCP 47 language codes such as en-US, fr-FR, or es-419.
Give the file a descriptive title
Displayed in browser tabs and read by screen readers on open
The document title is the first thing screen readers announce when a PDF is opened. A meaningful title helps users quickly confirm they have the right document — never leave it as a filename or blank.
Setting the title
- Open File → Properties
- On the Description tab, fill in Title
- Add Author, Subject, and Keywords too
- Click OK and save
Show title in title bar
- Open File → Properties
- Click the Initial View tab
- Under Window Options, set Show to Document Title
- Save the file
Run OCR on scanned pages
Convert image-only pages into searchable, selectable text
Scanned PDFs are essentially photographs — there is no underlying text for a screen reader to read. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) recognises characters in the image and embeds real text in the PDF layer.
Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Go to Tools → Scan & OCR
- Choose Recognise Text → In This File
- Select language and output settings
- Click Recognise Text
- Review results and correct errors
Free alternatives
- ABBYY FineReader — high accuracy
- Tesseract OCR — open source CLI
- Adobe Acrobat online — free tier
- Google Drive — open in Docs, export PDF
Always proofread OCR output — errors in recognised text are invisible to sighted users but disruptive to screen reader users.
Apply automated tagging
Give the document logical reading order and structure
PDF tags are hidden metadata that describe document structure — headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, figures — and determine the order in which content is read aloud. An untagged PDF cannot be navigated by assistive technology.
Auto-tag in Acrobat Pro
- Go to Tools → Accessibility
- Click Autotag Document
- Open the Tags panel to review
- Fix any incorrect or missing tags manually
Common tag types
<H1> – <H6>
<P>
<L> <LI>
<Table>
<Figure>
<Artifact>Use <Artifact> for decorative elements and page furniture like headers and footers.
Auto-tagging is a starting point, not a finished product. Complex layouts, multi-column text, and tables almost always need manual correction.
Add alt text to images
Describe informative visuals so they are not invisible to screen reader users
Every image that conveys information must have alternative text. Decorative images should be marked as artefacts so they are skipped. Without alt text, a screen reader will either announce “figure” with no context, or read out the image’s unhelpful internal name.
Adding alt text in Acrobat Pro
- Open the Tags panel
- Right-click the
<Figure>tag → Properties - Enter alt text in the Alternate Text field
- Click Close
Writing good alt text
- Describe the purpose, not just appearance
- Keep it concise — one to two sentences
- Avoid “image of…” or “photo of…”
- Include data from charts in the alt text or a caption
- Leave alt blank for decorative images — or tag as Artifact
Final verification checklist
Recommended checkers: PAC 2024 (free, Windows), Acrobat’s Accessibility Checker (Tools → Accessibility → Full Check), and axesPDF for large-scale remediation workflows.