Whether you are financial institution, healthcare industry, educational institution, government organization or any other business providing an accessible website, you should also be mindful of the PDF documents you attach to your website. The PDF documents must be accessible and must meet Section 508, WCAG 2.0 and other accessibility standards. Accessible documents allow all users to view the important information you provide on your website.
And as you decide to make your PDF documents accessible, the next question would be whether to choose a PDF remediation service or invest in an automation tool.
One of the main reasons why you need to choose a PDF remediation service is that accessibility cannot be achieved 100% through automation. An automated accessible PDF document could still be difficult to access for people with disabilities and may not entirely meet the necessary accessibility standards and guidelines.
What Automated Tools Can’t do?
- Verifying the accuracy of alt texts or image descriptions
- Verifying accuracy of all the tags including the use of headings.
- Validating the tags of complex tables and lists.
- Verifying the correct reading order of the document.
- Verifying the accuracy of tooltips assigned to form fields.
- Verify accurate metadata
- Fixing colour contrast issues
Every automated tool in the market varies but in general these are some of the common things overlooked or missed by most of the automated tools.
A PDF remediation service goes beyond the automated check by:
- Identifying the relevant Heading Structure
- Marking the language of the document & the content
- Setting the correct reading order
- Marking the lists
- Setting the column and row headers for simple & complex tables
- Setting the bookmarks
- Correcting the colour contrast for textual content if required
Though automation may play a role, PDF accessibility whether at the document creation or testing stage, accessibility can’t be achieved entirely through automation. It would always be better to go for a PDF remediation service to achieve 100% accessibility and usability of your PDF documents.
At 247 Accessible Documents, we aim to simplify making your PDF documents accessible. Our PDF remediation service team of experts help meet your compliance and manage risk as per ADA, Section 508, PDF/UA WCAG 2.0, and HHS. Get in touch with us sales@247accessibledocuments.com
