Operation Manual

245
USING ACROBAT X STANDARD
Accessibility, tags, and reflow
Last updated 10/11/2011
Checking the accessibility of PDFs
About accessibility checkers
The best way to test the accessibility of a document is to attempt to use the document with the tools that your readers
will use. However, if you don’t have a screen reader or braille printer, use a method provided by Acrobat to check PDF
accessibility.
• Use Quick Check to check for document structure tags, searchable text, and appropriate security settings for
accessibility. This method is often the best way to check for accessibility before attempting to use a PDF.
• Use Reflow view to quickly check the reading order.
• Use Read Out Loud to experience the document as it will be experienced by readers who use the text-to-speech
conversion tool.
• Save the document as accessible text and then read the saved text file in a word-processing application. This exercise
enables you to emulate the end-user experience of readers who use a braille printer to read the document.
Note: The accessibility checker tools can help identify areas of documents that may be in conflict with the Adobe
interpretation of the accessibility guidelines. These guidelines may be referenced in the application and its
documentation. However, these tools don’t check documents against all accessibility criteria, including those in the
referenced guidelines. In addition, Adobe doesn’t warrant that documents comply with any specific guidelines or
regulations.
More Help topics
“Reading a PDF with a screen reader” on page 251
“Reflow a PDF” on page 250
“Read a PDF with Read Out Loud” on page 251
“Save as accessible text for a braille printer” on page 250
Check accessibility with Quick Check
Use Quick Check to examine a PDF to see if it has searchable text, document structure tags, and appropriate security
settings to make it accessible.
❖ Choose Tools > Recognize Text> In This File.
If the document is unstructured, a message may appear, suggesting that you change reading order preferences.
More Help topics
“Setting accessibility preferences” on page 246
Accessibility Quick Check results
“This document has logical structure but it is not a Tagged PDF. Some accessibility information may be missing.”
Quick Check has found an underlying document structure in the document, so Acrobat uses the available document
structure to control the reading order, rather than analyzing the document itself. However, this untagged document
structure might be incomplete or unreliable, so assistive software and the accessibility features in Acrobat (such as the
Read Out Loud and the Save As Text features) may not read the page properly. If the reading order of the page seems to
be wrong, select Override The Reading Order In Tagged Documents in the Reading panel of the Preferences dialog box.