Accessibility features in pdfs – Adobe Acrobat XI User Manual
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Accessibility, tags, and reflow
Last updated 1/14/2015
Accessibility features in PDFs
A document or application is accessible if people with disabilities, such as mobility impairments, blindness, and low
vision, can use it. Accessibility features in Adobe Acrobat,Adobe Reader®, and Adobe Portable Document Format
(PDF) enable people with disabilities to use PDF documents, with or without screen readers, screen magnifiers, and
braille printers.
Making PDFs accessible tends to benefit all users. For example, the document structure that enables a screen reader to
read a PDF out loud also enables a mobile device to reflow and display the document on a small screen. Similarly, the
preset tab order of an accessible PDF form helps all users, not just users with mobility impairments, fill the form more
easily.
Accessibility features in Acrobat and Reader fall into two broad categories. There are features to make the reading of
PDF documents more accessible, and features to create accessible PDF documents. To create accessible PDF
documents, use Acrobat, not Reader.
Features for accessible reading of PDFs
• Preferences and commands to optimize output for assistive software and devices, such as saving as accessible text
for a braille printer
• Preferences and commands to make navigation of PDFs more accessible, such as automatic scrolling and opening
PDFs to the last page read
• Accessibility Setup Assistant for easy setting of most preferences related to accessibility
• Keyboard alternates to mouse actions
• Reflow capability to display PDF text in large type and to temporarily present a multicolumn PDF in a single, easy-
to-read column.
• Read Out Loud text-to-speech conversion
• Support for screen readers and screen magnifiers
Features for creating accessible PDFs
• Creation of tagged PDFs from authoring applications
• Conversion of untagged PDFs to tagged PDFs
• Security setting that allows screen readers to access text while preventing users from copying, printing, editing, and
extracting text
• Ability to add text to scanned pages to improve accessibility
• (Acrobat Pro) Tools for editing reading order and document structure
• (Acrobat Pro) Tools for creating accessible PDF forms
Acrobat Standard provides some functionality for making existing PDFs accessible.Acrobat Pro enables you to perform
tasks, such as editing reading order, or editing document structure tags that are necessary to make some PDF
documents and forms accessible.
Additional resources