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Creating Accessible PDFs with Adobe Acrobat 6 and Microsoft Word 2000

This document covers the following five areas related to creating and using accessible Adobe Acrobat documents,

1. Developing guidelines to determine which documents should be published as PDFs. The process of creating, testing, modifying and re-testing PDF for accessibility is a time consuming task. It is therefore a good idea to decide early on which documents are suitable for conversion to PDF.
2. Preparing source documents before conversion process: Source documents should be well structured, use simple layouts, and have appropriately labelled images.
3. Testing accessibility of PDF documents after they have been converted. Adobe Acrobat has a built-in accessibility checker and a new 'Read Aloud' feature. Jaws and other supported screen readers can be used to test the accessibility of PDF documents.
4. Creating accessible PDF forms. A summary of techniques and tools for creating accessible forms within PDF documents.
5. Anticipating client side accessibility issues, and educating users about new accessibility features.

1. Deciding whether or not to create accessible PDFs

It is essential that the new accessibility features of PDFs are fully implemented if the resulting documents are to be useful to screen reader users, or people with visual impairments. Given the current state of the technology, and tools for conversion and testing, satisfying this goal will be costly in terms of time. This will be particularly true, if large numbers of accessible PDFs are being created.

Decisions about which documents should be converted to PDF, should be considered in light of the time required for conversion, the audience for the document, and the nature of the content source.

Creating accessible PDFs is a relatively new task for most organisations; therefore there are not yet many examples of good practice to draw upon. However, the guidelines for best practice produced by U.S. Environmental Projection Agency - though not produced to meet UK legislation or UK specific requirements - do provide a useful starting point for anyone considering creating their own guidelines.

U.S. Environmental Projection Agency suggest that PDFs should only be used if:

• The document is longer than 5 pages.
• It is essential to preserve the formatting and layout of the original document.
• No electronic version exists and you need to publish a paper document
• You want to ensure people cannot modify the document.

They provide advice related to:

• Preparing the source document
• Conversion setting and strategies
• Creation of links and adding bookmarks
• Setting the appropriate view when the PDF is opened
• Testing the accessibility of the document
• Creating PDFs from Scanned Documents.
• Optimizing PDFs for the Internet.

The draft guidelines included practical lessons for creating accessibility PDFS, and can be downloaded from the U.S. Environmental Projection Agency.

Issues related to PDFs and access

Even when a PDF document has been carefully created to ensure optimum accessibility, there are still a number of issues that need to be considered before deciding to use them as a primary method of delivering content.

• Technical competence is required for users to download, and learn to use the navigation and searching conventions. Knowledge is also required to set accessibility preferences such as colours, reading order, and using the Reflow and Read Aloud features.
• JAWS supports Adobe Acrobat/Reader version 5 and higher, however, users require Adobe Acrobat 6 (the full version) to take advantage of all accessibility features.
• The 'Read out loud' facility in Adobe Acrobat 6 is not as good as the full-featured screen readers, and not everyone knows that it exists.
• Creating accessible PDF documents is not an easy task, and can be very time consuming; preparation of documents, checking accessibility, adding language specifications, adding summary information, testing for accessibility, fixing accessibility errors, and so on.
• Alterations made to PDFs cannot be saved and automatically applied to later revisions of the document. For this reason, much of the work related to creating accessible PDFs should be carried out in the source document, e.g., using styles to add formatting and ensuring appropriate conversion preferences are set.
• Even when care is taken to create accessible documents, the document may still be inaccessible to some users.

Anecdotal evidence from some screen reader users (see the discussion forum at WebAIM e.g. http://www.webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=1780) indicates that there are still problems with accessing the content of the latest 'accessible' Adobe PDF documents. WebAIM go so far as to recommend creating HTML version of PDF documents to ensure that the content is accessible,

"As discouraging as it may sound, the most reliable way to make a PDF file accessible is to convert it into accessible HTML. It is often also the easiest way. In fact, if possible, it may be more appropriate to eliminate the PDF files altogether and concentrate instead on making the content accessible in an HTML format. This isn't always an option, but it is worth considering in many cases." http://www.webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/

(Web Accessibility In Mind (WebAIM) is administered through a grant provided by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) Learning Anywhere Anytime Partnerships (LAAP). Based in the US.)

2. Preparing Source Documents

A note about Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional versus Standard Version

Use Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Profession rather than the standard version for creating and working with accessible PDFs. The standard version has important short-comings when attempting create accessible PDF documents:

• Accessibility problems cannot be fixed after PDF documents have been created (i.e. there is no check and 'touch up').
• There is no access to the tags tab, to re-arrange reading order, add alternative text and so on. The only way to access the structure of the PDF is to export the contents as XML and view the result as text.
• It is not possible to create and optimize Adobe PDF forms.

The importance of document structure when creating accessible PDFs

The accessibility of Adobe Acrobat PDF documents is dependent both on the existence of appropriate document structure, and ensuring that information about that structure is available to access technologies, such as screen readers. Adobe Acrobat PDF documents make use of tags to 'markup' the structure of documents. The information provided by the tags is made available to supporting assistive technologies.

Ideally this tagging will be done at the point of conversion from the source document. The usefulness of the tags is, however, dependent upon creating well structured source documents. In the case of Word this implies the consistent use of styles for adding presentation and document structure; i.e. use header styles, using the in-built column and tables features rather than tabs or spaces, and automated spacing rather than return characters.

Office 2000: preferences and conversion settings to create accessible PDF documents

Word 2000 or later supports the creation of accessible Adobe Acrobat PDFs; documents created in earlier versions of Word should be opened and saved as Word 2000 documents.

Adobe PDF conversions Settings

Setting the appropriate conversions settings in Word will help ensure that the resulting PDFs are accessible.

To set conversion settings in Office 2000 or above, Choose Acrobat>Change Conversion settings

Figure 1 PDF Conversion Settings.

• Ensure that the 'Enable accessibility and reflow with Tagged PDF' option is checked.
• Turn on convert Document Information.
• Setting compatibility, resolution, and fonts

Click the Advanced Settings button to set compatibility, resolution and fonts settings.

Figure 2: Conversion Settings General Tab.

• Set compatibility to Acrobat 4, as many people will still be using older versions of the reader.
• Ensure Optimize for fast web view is clicked.
• Setting the resolution: the higher the resolution the bigger the file, but lower resolutions will have an impact on the quality of graphics. 600 will provide good quality images, however, if file size is an issue, decrease towards 300dpi.

Choose the Fonts tab

Figure 3: Conversion Settings: Fonts tab.

Unclick 'Embed all fonts'; as embedding all fonts will increase the size of the file. Include only fonts used in the document; transfer required fonts from the Font Source: window to the Always Ember Window - hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple fonts.

Saving your settings as Job Option

Once you have completed all of your alterations in the advanced Settings section to the conversion settings, click Save As.., give your job options a name and save. The name you provide for the file will be set as the default 'Job Option' for converting future documents to PDFs.

Security and accessibility

Choose the Security tab to set security settings.

Figure 4: Security tab.

When using a password to restrict printing and editing, ensure that 'Enable copying of text, images, other content and enable access for visually impaired' is checked.

Bookmarks

Screen reader users can use Bookmarks to jump to associated places in the document. The bookmarks dialog box allows you to define which headings or styles are used to create bookmarks.

Figure 5: Bookmarks tab.

You can create bookmarks from either headings or styles.

Create Web Links

Choose Advanced>Links>Create from URLs in Document

Figure 6: Create Web Links.

Use the default, and click the OK button.

Preparing source documents to for best results

Documents will be optimized for accessibility if the following guidelines are followed:

Useful guidelines

• Use simple and straightforward layouts for best results in terms of accessibility.
• Avoid unnecessary ornamentation - such as background images, text overlaying graphics, overlapping figures and so on.
• Avoid using text boxes, and avoid creating watermarks as these require text boxes.
• Do not paste graphics in a text box - as they are considered floating objects in the page; when tagged PDF documents are created all Text boxes are placed behind all other objects, like paragraphs and headings on the page.
• To create a table, use the Insert Table Command, or Draw Table tool. (Tool bar>Table) Don't use tabs and spaces to create tables.
• When creating columns use the Columns command, i.e. don't use tabs to simulate columns. Format/Column and adjust as required. For maximum accessibility avoid using multiple columns.
• Use common fonts: Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman.
• Provide alternative text for all images and graphs.
• Avoid using symbols and special fonts.
• If possible, avoid using overlapping text and graphics.

Creating overlapping text and graphics is not recommended as it can result in text being unreadable or garbled. The following advice is copied from the Adobe Accessibility booklet,

"When you create your original document, don't overlap elements. Make sure that text and images are visually separate on each page." http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_book_appendixa.html

Busy Backgrounds to pages

In addition to potential problems related to overlapping text and graphics, backgrounds graphics may make text harder to read for some people with visual impairments. The Adobe Accessibility help documents note that using watermarks and background images can create accessibility problems.

Use styles to format and add structure

Use the most appropriate styles to create headings and the structures of your word documents, e.g.

• bullet lists
• numbered lists
• chapters
• blocks of text
• headings
• images
• URLs and email addresses
• Tables of contents

Using styles to format headings, paragraphs, page titles and so on, provides appropriate structure information that will be retained when the document is published as a PDF.

When creating space above and below paragraphs use the 'Spacing Before' and 'Spacing After' paragraph properties rather than the Enter key.

Turn on automatic formatting

If you are not adding styles, ensure that the preference for automatic formatting is set - this will assist in the creation of lists, internet, email addresses and so on.

To setup automatic formatting:

Select Tools>Autocorrect Options

Click the 'Autoformat As You Type' tab and check the following:

• Automatic bulleted lists
• Automatic numbered lists
• Internet and network paths with hyperlinks
• Define styles based on formatting

Figure 7: Autocorrect Dialog box.

For documents that are expected to be converted to XML or RTF - be more deliberate in your application of styles (e.g. Heading 1, Heading 2, lists and so on).

Providing alternative text for images

Right-click on the image, select 'Format Picture' then the 'Web' tab, then add the alternative text. Other versions of Word have similar functionality.

All graphics should be inserted inline with the text. This will ensure that they retain their proper reading order.

Figure 8: Format Picture dialog box.

Word offers five different text wrapping styles: inline with text, square, tight, behind text, and in front of text.

Only inline retains the graphics' position relative to the document's text. The other wrapping styles are treated identically to floating objects.

The simplest way to insert a graphic, and have it remember its place in the document, is to use Insert > Picture - and choose the appropriate image source. Alternatively, copy and paste the image into Word, and then edit the properties of the graphic to change its text wrapping

Right click, select Format menu item. In Format dialog, click 'Layout' tab and change the wrapping to inline. Having inserted your graphic, you can provide alternative text as described above.

Group illustrations created from smaller images

When creating an illustration from several smaller illustrations, group them into a single graphic. Make the Drawing Palette toolbar active, left click on one of the images, hold the shift key down and click each related image in turn to select them all. Click on the Draw button on the menu bar and pick the Group option. Add your alternative text to this single image.

Add document summary information.

After you have created your PDF document, you should always add summary information. Document summary information is used by search engines to create the text for the search results page.

Select File>Document Properties..

Add a document summary to your document.

3. Testing the Accessibility of Adobe Acrobat 6 PDFs

Adobe Acrobat PDFs can be checked using the built-in accessibility checker, the Read Aloud feature, a compatible screen reader such as Jaws, and/or by saving the documents as text and checking the reading order.

Using the Accessibility Checker

The accessibility checker, checks that all non-text elements have alternative text, that there are no character encoding problems, that a language has been specified for text, and that all content is tagged and represented as part of the document structure.

Test by choosing Advanced>Accessibility>Full Check.

Figure 9: Accessibilty Full Check dialog box.

Check the 'Create Accessibility Report' option, and use the browse button to specify the folder you would like the report saved to. Check the 'create comments in document' as this may be useful to provide context information related to each accessibility problem. Specify other options are required and click the 'Start Checking' button.

When reading through the resulting file, the most common problems you are likely to find are:

• Text block(s) with no language specified
• Images in the file with no alternative text.
• Element(s) inaccessible because they are not contained within the structure tree.

Specifying language

Specifying the appropriate language for text ensures that the correct characters are used when the document is reused for another purpose. It also ensures that the word will be pronounced correctly, and that it can be spell checked with the correct dictionary.

To specify the language choose Properties from the Options menu (on the tags tab) and choose the appropriate language from the pop up menu in the tags tab.

Images in the text with no specified text

Each image has to be evaluated before deciding whether or not it contains essential content, and therefore, whether alternative text should be provided, e.g. decorative images do not require alternative text - as the text would be read out by screen reader. To add alternative text, select the problematic tag in the tags tab, choose Properties from the tab Options menu, fill in the 'Alternative text' field, and click the 'Close' button to save the change.

Elements not contained within the tree structure

Having elements that are not contained within the tree structure is not necessarily an accessibility problem; the elements may not be important to the document content (e.g. they may be decorative images).

Sorting the above problems in Adobe Acrobat 6 Standard version, is more difficult as there is no access to the tags tab. To view tags the document needs to be saved as XML, and the XML file viewed in a text reader. Problems found then need to be fixed (if possible) in the source document and the file re-converted.

Use the 'Read Out Loud' feature to test the order of text within the document. View>Read Out Loud>Read This Page Only (or Read To End of Document). When using the 'Read Out Loud' feature for the first time you will probably need to slow the reading rate in order to understand the content: choose Edit>Preferences>Reading and modify 'Words per minute'. I used 150 words per minute and was able to understand the text ok.

As Jaws for Windows is a popular and powerful screen reader, testing using Jaws will provide an idea of how accessible the document will be for many blind or

visually impaired users. Jaws for Windows supports Adobe Acrobat 5 or greater. The specific keyboard commands within Jaws for PDF are as follows:

JAWS Commands for Acrobat/Reader

Description	Command
Forms Mode	ENTER
Virtual Cursor On	NUM PAD PLUS
Virtual Find	CTRL+F
Links List	INSERT+F7
Next Page	CTRL+PAGE DOWN
Previous Page	CTRL+PAGE UP
Go to Page	CTRL+N (in Acrobat/Reader 5) CTRL+SHIFT+N (in Acrobat/Reader 6)
Go to First Page	CTRL+SHIFT+PAGE UP
Go to Last Page	CTRL+SHIFT+PAGE DOWN
Say All INSERT+DOWN ARROW

Jaws is a powerful and complex program which takes time to get used to; an experience Jaws user may provide a more reliable report of the accessibility of any PDFs created with accessibility in mind

Common problems that using a screen reader may reveal:

• Text is not read in the correct order (use styles in original and convert to tagged content, or re-order tags within Adobe Acrobat 6.0).
• Text is not readable because the document has been password protected. (ensure 'Enable copying of text, images, other content and enable access for visually impaired' is checked in security preferences.)
• A list of document contents has not been provided (ensure bookmarks are created as part of the conversion process, or add bookmarks to your document within Adobe Acrobat 6).
• Images do not have text descriptions (add descriptions to images before conversion, or within Adobe Acrobat 6. Decorative images will not require descriptions ).
• Text is garbled or unreadable, due to complex layouts (simplify layouts, avoid overlapping text and graphics).
• Forms are unreadable or garbled (add form fields that have meaningful information and are read in the correct order).
• Text is unreadable because the text in the document is a scanned image (convert scanned page to searchable text when capturing the original).

4. Creating accessible forms in Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Documents

Create the original document with background, text rectangles, and layout graphic elements, and so on, for the form. Convert the document to PDF, and then use the forms tool to create form fields.

Tab order within forms

In a tagged PDF document the tab order will be determined by the tag order in the structure tree. To ensure this is active:

Click the pages tab in the navigation bar

• Select a page thumbnail and choose Page Properties from the Options menu
• In the page properties dialog box click the tab order
• Select Use Document Structure.

Adding form fields to a structured document

Open the tags tab and choose Options>Tags Annotation A checkmark indicates the feature is active

Select the structure node that you want to add the form field to.

Add a form field, by doing the following:

Choose Tools>Advanced Editing>Forms>Show Forms Toolbar, and select Forms tool. Create a form field.

Add field properties such as title and tool tip. The properties dialog can be opened by double clicking the form field.

The structure tree now contains a child node, Text Object Reference (Text OBJR), under the structure node you selected.

The tags tab must remain open until all form fields have been created.

Use background colour and borders to increase accessibility of forms

It can be difficult to visualize form fields if the form field is not coloured; setting a background colour to forms can enhance their visibility.

To set a background colour for form fields and change how they appear, choose Edit>Preferences>Forms

Figure 10: Setting background colour for form fields.

Click option for 'show background colour for form fields'. Choose a custom colour from the colour swatch. Form fields will be identified with a background colour, and when the pointer is moved over a field, a black border will be placed around the field. This helps to make the form field stand out, and increases usability for users.

Adobe PDF Forms Access Agent

Adobe PDF Forms Access Agent is a tool to help reduce the work and time required to create accessible PDF forms. Forms can be turned into tagged Adobe PDF form, making them accessible to assistive technologies such as screen readers. Adobe PDF Forms Access Agent can be obtained as a standalone utility, or as part of the Adobe Acrobat Agent Pack. More information can be found at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrcapture/agentpack/main.html#Anchor-Adobe-49575

5. Anticipating client side accessibility issues, and educating users about new accessibility features

When Adobe Acrobat files are provided for download on the web, a useful strategy is to provide a link to page containing the following information:

• A link to the accessible page to download the full version of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Information about text and HTML conversion services.
• Contact details in the event that alternative formats are required.

Adobe Acrobat Reader accessibility features

You may also wan to consider providing details of accessibility features built-in to the latest version of Acrobat Adobe 6:

• Keyboard control.
• Contrast and colour control.
• Automatic scrolling.
• The Read Aloud feature.
• Zoom and resize text functions.

Keyboard Controls

The ability to navigate through the document using the keyboard will be important for many users. Adobe Acrobat 6 provides is an extensive list of keyboard shortcuts. The following are some of the most useful. The full list can be found in the help files.

Keyboard shortcut	Windows	Mac
Zoom in	Ctrl+plus sign	Command+plus sign
Zoom out	Ctrl_minus sign	Command+minus sign
Scroll up	Up arrow	Up arrow
Scroll down	Down arrow	Down arrow
Go to next screen	Page Down	Page Down
Go to previous screen	Page Up	Page Up

Contrast and colour control

Choose Edit>Preferences>Accessibility

Figure 11: Document Colour Options.

Check, 'Replace Documents Colours' checkbox, and then either choose custom colours from the colour swatch provided, or if the computer is already set up with appropriate colour contrasts, check the box for 'Use Windows Color Scheme'.

Automatic Scrolling

When automatic scrolling is turned on the document starts scrolling from the current position in the document. Turn on automatic scrolling choose, View>Automatic Scroll (Ctrl+Shift+H). To turn off automatic scrolling using the same keyboard command or press the Esc key. Pressing the mouse button will pause the scrolling - restarting when the mouse button is released.

Pressing the down arrow increases the speed of the scroll, press the up arrow to decrease it. To reverse the direction of the scroll press the minus key on the keyboard or keypad.

Consider accessibility for people with mobility, hearing, and cognitive impairments.

Users of screen readers, or people with visual impairments are not the only group of people who are likely to have problems accessing Adobe Acrobat PDFs. Larger 'hotspots' for people with mobility impairments may help (although of course they can resize the document), transcripts and captions for people with hearing impairments for any audio or video, and use clear language for people with cognitive impairments.

A final word

This document has covered some of the most useful techniques, and highlights potential problems for those attempting to create accessible PDFs. However, there is much more to learn; hopefully this document has served as a useful introduction.

Jim Byrne February 2004

Jim Byrne & Associates: http://www.jimbyrne.co.uk

The Web Accessibility and PDF Accessibility Specialist.