Can you be assured all the content on your website is accessible to people with disabilities\u2014including those with visual impairments?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No organization is exempt from accessibility legislation. Yes, larger companies like Target, Wells Fargo, and Netflix are more likely to make headlines for million-dollar lawsuits brought against them. But every day, smaller companies are also being sued for lack of compliance\u2014resulting in massive legal fees, lowered productivity, decreased employee and customer engagement, and bad press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All this to say, it is critical to your organization\u2019s well-being to ensure your website can be accessed by people who are blind, visually impaired, cognitively impaired, or color-blind. And that means your online content must follow several compliance standards<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ensuring your online content follows global standards like WCAG and PDF\/UA can significantly reduce your risks of digital accessibility non-compliance. However, achieving that level of compliance can be a massive undertaking. And without an expert digital accessibility audit<\/a>, it can be challenging to know if your entire website is properly accessible (or just a metaphorical \u201csitting duck\u201d for a lawsuit).<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s not all bad news! You can do things yourself to get started on your journey to accessibility. And it begins with looking at the PDF documents on your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the native file format of the Adobe Acrobat family of products, the Portable Document Format\u2014aka PDF\u2014is widely used by government and private organizations on their websites, apps, and other digital offerings. The format\u2019s popularity is due to users being able to view and share electronic documents conveniently without losing or tampering with information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A PDF document is considered accessible if everyone can read it. More specifically, an accessible PDF enables people with disabilities to read the document using assistive technology software and devices like screen magnifiers, screen readers, speech-recognition software, text-to-speech software, alternative input devices, and refreshable Braille displays<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have PDFs on your website, chances are that the authoring tool you use is not making them accessible. Worse yet, without a means to validate each PDF, you very likely would not know which errors are present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The good news? Software exists to help you test whether a given PDF document is accessible or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Generally speaking, an accessibility validation tool will run the PDF document through a set of predetermined tests and checkpoints\u2014looking at several properties including but not limited to metadata, tags, tables, and forms. If the document passes those tests, congratulations! You have an accessible PDF that anybody can read, regardless of ability or disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To ensure you select the most effective PDF accessibility validator for your organization, ensure it embodies the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine having peace of mind that all the content on your website is compliant with accessibility standards. Using a PDF accessibility checker is a significant first step toward providing equitable access to all users\u2014not to mention achieving the validation you need to ensure you\u2019re aligned with current legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ready to get started on your organization\u2019s accessibility journey? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Can you be assured all the content on your website is accessible to people with disabilities\u2014including those with visual impairments? No organization is exempt from accessibility legislation. Yes, larger companies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":85145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tDefining an accessible PDF<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Checking for and validating PDF accessibility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Software features to look for<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Move towards accessibility with better peace of mind<\/h2>\n\n\n\n