6 Common Practices to Make a PDF ADA Compliant

The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) is a civil rights law that was proposed into action in 1990 in the United States to forbid discrimination against people with disabilities. It ensures that everyone, regardless of disabilities, have equal access and opportunities to public accommodations, transportation, employment, telecommunications, and state and local government services.

What's the Relationship Between ADA Compliance and Accessible PDFs?

The ADA compliance is relevant to PDF accessibility because PDF documents are commonly used to share information in various contexts, including government agencies, educational institutions, businesses, and organizations. Many individuals with disabilities rely on assistive technologies, such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, or alternative input devices, to access and interact with digital content. And if PDFs are not properly designed and structured, it can pose barriers to accessibility.

According to ADA compliance, every part of a website needs to be accessible. This also includes PDFs and other files visible to the website visitor. Most websites have their documents saved in PDF format since it promotes proper formatting, and people viewing cannot edit it. But these format-preserving PDFs often end up being inaccessible to people who use assistive technology. And when this happens, visitors with disabilities cannot access these PDF files and face discrimination.

So, even if your website is ADA compliant and your PDFs are not accessible, the website still becomes inaccessible and is subject to a lawsuit.

How to Make a PDF ADA Compliant

To make a PDF ADA-compliant, several elements need to be taken care of. Here are some fundamental ones to keep in mind:

1. Tag the PDF

PDF tagging is necessary to make your PDF accessible and ADA-compliant. A properly tagged PDF has appropriately structured content using tags with the correct reading order.

2. Use Structured Content

Follow the right logical and hierarchical manner to make a PDF accessible to everyone viewing it. To make sure there's a logical structure, correctly identify headings, lists, and paragraphs in the content. This allows screen readers to navigate the content effectively and makes it easier for users with disabilities to access content successfully.

3. Use Appropriate Colors

Using appropriate colors in PDFs is important to ensure the PDF is accessible for people with color blindness and other vision impairments. To make PDF accessible and compliant with ADA by using appropriate colors:

• Make sure the text and background have enough contrast

• Don't rely solely on color to convey important information or instructions

• Maintain consistent color usage throughout the document to help individuals with cognitive disabilities or learning difficulties to understand and process the information more easily

4. Add Alternative Text

Also called alt text, this is crucial if you have a non-textual element, like an image, in the PDF. An alternative text is a brief description of the image that is then read out loud by assistive technologies like screen readers.

5. Provide Accessible Forms

Accessible forms ensure that the PDF is structured and designed to be easily understood and used by individuals with disabilities. To make PDFs accessible:

• Ensure you use interactive form fields within the PDF instead of relying on static text

• Make the form fields follow a logical reading order when using assistive technologies

• Provide clear and descriptive labels for each form field

• Labels should be associated with their corresponding form fields using appropriate markup or properties, allowing assistive technologies to identify the purpose of each form field accurately and make the PDFs accessible

6. Include Accessible Links

Use descriptive link text that describes the destination or purpose of the link to help assistive technologies accurately interpret the link context. Clearly distinguish links from the regular text by using underlines, color contrasts, or other visual cues. Further, to promote accessible PDFs, position links within the content logically and intuitively.

Test PDFs for Accessibility

Lastly, before distributing your PDF on the website, you should test it for accessibility issues. Use assistive technologies like magnification software or screen readers to detect accessibility issues. Several accessibility checking tools can ensure that your PDF is accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities or disabilities.