Adobe 22020772 User manual

Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide:
PDF Accessibility Overview

Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Acrobat Connect, the Adobe PDF logo, Creative Suite, LiveCycle, and Reader are either registered trade-
marks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. AutoCAD is either a registered trade-
mark or a trademark of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. GeoTrust is a registered trademark of GeoTrust, Inc. Microsoft
and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All
other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
© 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Making PDF Accessible with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
| i
Introduction 1
PDF Accessibility 1
Each PDF File is Different 1
Two Workflows for Creating Accessible PDF Files 1
Characteristics of Accessible PDF files 1
Searchable text 2
Fonts that allow characters to be extracted to text 2
Interactive form fields 2
Other Interactive Features: Buttons, hyperlinks, and navigational aids 2
Document language 2
Security that will not interfere with assistive technology 2
Document structure tags and proper read order 2
Alternative text descriptions 2
Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader Accessibility Features 3
Features for Accessible Reading of PDFs 3
Features for Creating Accessible PDFs 3
The Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide Series 4
PDF Accessibility Overview (this document) 4
Creating Accessible PDF from Microsoft® Word 4
Acrobat 9 Pro PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow 5
Using the Accessibility Checker in Acrobat 9 Pro 5
Creating Accessible PDF Forms with Acrobat 9 Pro 5
Acrobat 9 Pro Complete Best Practices for Accessibility 5

Making PDF Accessible with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
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Adobe Acrobat 9 and PDF Accessibility
1
Introduction
PDF Accessibility
A document or application is accessible if it can be used by people with disabilities—such as mobility
impairments, blindness, and low vision—and not just by people who can see well and use a mouse.
Accessibility features in Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) make
it easier for people with disabilities to use PDF documents and forms, with or without the aid of assistive
software and devices such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, and braille printers.
Making PDFs accessible tends to benefit all users. For example, the underlying document structure that
makes it possible for a screen reader to properly read a PDF out loud also makes it possible for a mobile
device to correctly 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.
Each PDF File is Different
Not all PDFs are the same. PDF files are created in a variety of ways, from a variety of applications, and for a
variety of purposes. In addition to applying the proper accessibility enhancements to PDF documents,
achieving your accessibility goals for an individual PDF file requires understanding the nature of the PDF
and the uses for which it is intended.
Using the guide Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow, you will learn
how to assess existing PDF files for certain characteristics which influence their accessibility. The order in
which this assessment is conducted is important. By following these procedures in the recommended order,
users can efficiently proceed through the analysis of a PDF file in a systematic fashion. Systematically ruling
out or confirming certain characteristics which a PDF file may possess will guide you to the most
appropriate next step for making an individual PDF accessible.
This series also discusses techniques for converting source files to accessible PDF. Using the Adobe
PDFMaker with Microsoft Word as an example, this guide provides best practices for designing your source
document with accessibility in mind so that the original document can be efficiently transformed into an
accessible PDF version. Refer to the guide entitled Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Creating
Accessible PDF from Microsoft® Word for complete information.
Note: These Best Practices techniques assume the user has access to Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 or
Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended for Windows. Adobe Reader 9 and Adobe Acrobat 9
Standard do not have the complete set of tools needed to create and validate PDF
documents for accessibility.
Two Workflows for Creating Accessible PDF Files
The PDF format is a destination file format. PDF files are typically created in some other application. What
this means is that the author who is concerned with PDF accessibility will be confronted with one of two
situations:
• Individuals working with an existing PDF file will want to know how to edit/update it to be
an accessible PDF file.
• Authors will want to know how to use some other software application, such as a word processing
or desktop publishing application, to generate an accessible PDF file from that application if
possible.
Characteristics of Accessible PDF files
The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) is the native file format of the Adobe® Acrobat® family of
products. The goal of these products is to enable users to exchange and view electronic documents easily and

Introduction
Adobe Acrobat 9 and PDF Accessibility
2 |
reliably, independently of the environment in which they were created. PDF relies on the same imaging
model as the PostScript® page description language to describe text and graphics in a device-independent
and resolution-independent manner. To improve performance for interactive viewing, PDF defines a more
structured format than that used by most PostScript language programs. PDF also includes objects, such as
annotations and hypertext links, that are not part of the page itself but are useful for interactive viewing and
document interchange.
Accessible PDFs have the following characteristics:
Searchable text
A document that consists of scanned images of text is inherently inaccessible because the content of the
document is a graphic representing the letters on the page, not searchable text. Assistive software cannot
read or extract the words in a graphic representation, users cannot select or edit the text, and you cannot
manipulate the PDF for accessibility. You must convert the scanned images of text to searchable text using
optical character recognition (OCR) before you can use other accessibility features with the document.
Fonts that allow characters to be extracted to text
The fonts in an accessible PDF must contain enough information for Acrobat to correctly extract all of the
characters to text for purposes other than displaying text on the screen. Acrobat extracts characters to
Unicode text when you read a PDF with a screen reader or the Read Out Loud tool, or when you save as text
for a braille printer. This extraction fails if Acrobat cannot determine how to map the font to Unicode
characters.
Interactive form fields
Some PDFs contain forms that a person is to fill out using a computer. To be accessible, form fields must be
interactive—meaning that a user must be able to enter values into the form fields. Interactive PDF forms also
have a defined tab order allowing users of assistive technology to use the tab key in order to progress from
one form field or interactive control in a logical manner. Refer to the document Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro
Accessibility Guide: Creating Accessible Forms for complete details.
Other Interactive Features: Buttons, hyperlinks, and navigational aids
Navigational aids in a PDF—such as links, bookmarks, headings, a table of contents, and a preset tab order
for form fields—assist all users in using the document without having to read through the entire document,
word by word. Bookmarks are especially useful and can be created from document headings. Many of these
aids can be accessed using the keyboard without relying on the mouse.
Document language
Specifying the document language in a PDF enables some screen readers to switch to the appropriate
language.
Security that will not interfere with assistive technology
Some authors of PDFs restrict users from printing, copying, extracting, adding comments to, or editing text.
The text of an accessible PDF must be available to a screen reader. You can use Acrobat to ensure that
security settings don’t interfere with a screen reader’s ability to convert the on-screen text to speech.
Document structure tags and proper read order
To read a document’s text and present it in a way that makes sense to the user, a screen reader or other text-
to-speech tool requires that the document be structured. Document structure tags in a PDF define the
reading order and identify headings, paragraphs, sections, tables, and other page elements.
Alternative text descriptions
Document features such as images and interactive form fields can’t be read by a screen reader unless they
have associated alternative text. Though web links are read by screen readers, you can provide more

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meaningful descriptions as alternative text. Alternative text and tool tips can aid many users, including those
with learning disabilities.
Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader Accessibility Features
Accessibility features in Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader 9 fall into two broad categories: features to
make the reading of PDF documents more accessible and features to create accessible PDF documents. To
create accessible PDF documents, you must 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 temporarily present the text of a 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 from within Acrobat
• 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
• Tools for editing reading order and document structure
• Tools for creating accessible PDF forms
Though Acrobat Standard provides some functionality for making existing PDFs accessible, you must use
Acrobat Pro or Acrobat Pro Extended to perform certain tasks—such as editing reading order or editing
document structure tags—that may be necessary to make some PDF documents and forms accessible (See
“Table 1: Features for Creating Accessible PDF Files by Product” on page3).
Table 1: Features for Creating Accessible PDF Files by Product
Reader 9 Acrobat 9
Standard
Acrobat 9
Pro
Acrobat 9
Pro
Extended
Create PDF documents from any
application that prints
•••
Convert Microsoft Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, Publisher, and
Access files to PDF with one-
button ease*
•••
* Windows Only

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The Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide Series
To assist those who use Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro to create PDF files with the production of content that is
accessible to people with disabilities, Adobe Systems has created a series of accessibility guides for Adobe
Acrobat 9 Pro.
PDF Accessibility Overview (this document)
The Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: PDF Accessibility Overview details what is meant by
accessibility when considering the PDF file format. It distinguishes between the accessibility features of the
the file format and the accessibility features of the Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader application and how
the features of the software and the file format interact to achieve accessibility for people with disabilities.
Creating Accessible PDF from Microsoft® Word
The Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Creating Accessible PDF from Microsoft® Word provides an
example using Microsoft Word of how to use Acrobat’s PDFMaker to make accessible PDF files from the
Capture web pages as rich,
dynamic PDF files for review
and archiving
•••
Scan paper documents to PDF
and automatically recognize text
with optical character recogni-
tion (OCR)
•••
Save PDF files as Microsoft
Word documents, retaining the
layout, fonts, formatting, and
tables, to facilitate reuse of con-
tent
•••
Easily create fillable PDF forms
from paper or existing files using
the Form Wizard
•••
Enable users of Adobe Reader®
(version 8 or later) to fill in and
save PDF forms locally
•••
Create dynamic XML forms with
Adobe LiveCycle® Designer ES
(included)*
••
Create and validate accessible
PDF documents
••
Table 1: Features for Creating Accessible PDF Files by Product (Continued)
Reader 9 Acrobat 9
Standard
Acrobat 9
Pro
Acrobat 9
Pro
Extended
* Windows Only

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Adobe Acrobat 9 and PDF Accessibility
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popular word processing application. Some of the techniques apply to the Microsoft Office productivity
suite as well, such as PowerPoint® presentation graphics program.
Acrobat 9 Pro PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow
The Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow provides a step-by-step
method for analyzing existing PDF files and making them accessible based upon that analysis.
Using the Accessibility Checker in Acrobat 9 Pro
The Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Using the Accessibility Checker describes the accessibility
checkers for PDF files that are included in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro. Even if you generate an accessible PDF file
from an authoring application such a word proccessing application or desktop publishing program, you
should then follow the steps in this guide in order to identify any items that may have been missed in the
initial conversion or to add PDF accessibility features that are not provided by the authoring tool.
Creating Accessible PDF Forms with Acrobat 9 Pro
The guide entitled Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Creating Accessible Forms describes how to use
the forms tools within Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro to add descriptions to form fields, tag untagged forms, set the
tab order, manipulate tags, and perform other PDF accessibility tasks. These techniques do not apply to PDF
forms from Adobe LiveCycle Designer.
Acrobat 9 Pro Complete Best Practices for Accessibility
The complete content of the individual guides is also available as a single, comprehenive document entitled
Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Best Practices for Accessibility.

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Adobe Acrobat 9 and PDF Accessibility
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Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro Accessibility Guide:
Creating Accessible PDF from Microsoft® Word

Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Acrobat Connect, the Adobe PDF logo, Creative Suite, LiveCycle, and Reader are either registered trade-
marks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. AutoCAD is either a registered trade-
mark or a trademark of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. GeoTrust is a registered trademark of GeoTrust, Inc. Microsoft
and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All
other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
© 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Making PDF Accessible with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
| i
Creating Accessible PDF Files from Microsoft® Word 1
Introduction 1
Create an Accessible Microsoft Word Document 1
Use Styles 1
Text 1
Headings 2
Word 2003 Headings 2
Word 2007 Headings 2
Add Alternative Text to Word Graphics and Images 2
Word 2003 3
Word 2007 3
Configure the PDFMaker 4
Show or activate PDFMaker in Microsoft Word 4
For Office 2003 or earlier, 4
For Office 2007 4
View PDFMaker conversion settings 5
Settings Tab 5
Security Tab 7
Word Tab 8
Bookmarks Tab (Microsoft Word) 9
Video Tab (Microsoft Word and PowerPoint) 10
Settings for Other Microsoft Office Applications 11
Excel-specific options on the Settings tab 11
PowerPoint-specific options on the Settings tab 11
Convert the Word Document to Accessible PDF 12
Microsoft Office 2003 12

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Microsoft Office 2007 12
If the Word Document is a Form 13
Check the PDF Version of the Document Using Acrobat 13
Changes to the Conversion Settings 14
Repairs You Should Make in the Source File 14
Repairs You Should Make in the PDF File 14
Document Language 14
Tab Order is Consistent with Structure Order 14
Establish Table Headings for Tables 14

Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word
1
Creating Accessible PDF Files from
Microsoft® Word
Introduction
In Windows, Acrobat installs both an Acrobat PDFMaker toolbar and an Adobe PDF menu in many
popular authoring applications. PDFMaker provides conversion settings that let you create tagged accesible
PDFs in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
You can use either the toolbar buttons or the Adobe PDF menu to create PDFs, but the menu also provides
access to conversion settings. Although many of the conversion options are common to all the Microsoft
Office applications, a few are application-specific.
Note: For Microsoft Office 2007 applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access, the
options for creating PDFs are available from the Acrobat Ribbon.
In general, the following rules apply.
• Design your source document with accessibility in mind
• Do NOT use character formatting for headings, use the program’s styles.
• Do add alternative text to graphics in the source file
• Do use a table editor if available to create tables
• Do NOT use a table editor to design layouts
• Do generate the PDF file in a way that generates tags
• Do set your PDF output preferences option to tagged PDF
• Do check the results in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro using Advanced > Accessibility > Full Check
(shortcut: Alt + A + A + F)
• Do follow the suggestions for repair and repeat checking until no errors are detected
Create an Accessible Microsoft Word Document
You should author the original source document with accessibility in mind. This means you should add
structure to the document by using styles rather than character formats for such items as headings and lists.
You should also add alternate text descriptions to graphics that appear in the Word file using the format
picture dialog. You should use Word’s column command and not tables to create multi-column documents.
Use Styles
Design your documents with styles. Styles add the structure necessary to make your documents usable to
people with disabilities.
Text
The default text style for Microsoft Word is Normal.
• Text should be at least 12 point type.
• Avoid using Microsoft Word text boxes.
• Avoid using Enter to create space between paragraphs. Use the space before and space after
properties in your styles

Creating Accessible PDF Files from Microsoft® Word
Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word
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Headings
Use Styles to create heading formats. Title, Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, etc. Make styles progress in a
logical manner , a Heading 2 should come after a Heading 1
Word 2003 Headings
To create headings in Microsoft Word 2003 do the following
• Format > Styles and Formatting to reveal the styles and formatting task pane (See “Figure 1
Microsoft Word 2003 Styles and Formatting” on page2).
• Apply the appropriate heading from the Styles and Formatting panel to your document text
Figure 1 Microsoft Word 2003 Styles and Formatting
Word 2007 Headings
• Select the Home Ribbon in Word 2007 and select the proper heading from the styles group (See
“Figure 2 Microsoft Word 2007 Styles and Formatting” on page2).
Figure 2 Microsoft Word 2007 Styles and Formatting
Add Alternative Text to Word Graphics and Images
Alternative Text or Alt Text refers to text that can be read by a screen reader to describe graphics and images
which people with visual dis-abilities cannot see. All Graphics and Images should be provided with

Creating Accessible PDF Files from Microsoft® Word
Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word
| 3
alternative text descriptions. Avoid placing graphics too close to text. This can cause problems when
converting to PDF. Place white space between text and graphics.
Word 2003
• Double Click on an image or right click and select the format picture dialog.
• Select the Web tab and enter the alternative text (See “Figure 3 Microsoft Word 2003 Web Tab for
adding Alternative Text” on page3).
Figure 3 Microsoft Word 2003 Web Tab for adding Alternative Text
Word 2007
• Right Click on an image and choose Size
• Select the Alt Text tab and enter the alternative text (See “Figure 4 Microsoft Word 2007 Alt Text
for adding Alternative Text” on page3)
Figure 4 Microsoft Word 2007 Alt Text for adding Alternative Text

Creating Accessible PDF Files from Microsoft® Word
Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word
4 |
Configure the PDFMaker
Once you have authored your Microsoft Word document with accessibility in mind, you are ready to
convert it to an accessible PDF file. To generate an accessible PDF document directly from the Microsoft
Word source, you should use the Adobe PDFMaker to convert the file to PDF.
PDFMaker is an Acrobat feature that operates within many business applications, such as Microsoft Office
applications and Lotus Notes. When you install Acrobat, PDFMaker controls appear in the work area of the
authoring application.
Using PDFMaker within an authoring application is a simple, one-click procedure. It involves clicking an
Acrobat PDFMaker toolbar button or choosing a command on the Adobe PDF menu. It is not necessary to
open Acrobat.
In Windows, Acrobat installs both an Acrobat PDFMaker toolbar and an Adobe PDF menu in many
popular authoring applications. You can use either the toolbar buttons or the Adobe PDF menu to create
PDFs, but the menu also provides access to conversion settings.
Note: For Microsoft Office 2007 applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access, the
options for creating PDFs are available from the Acrobat ribbon (See “Figure 5 Microsoft
Word 2007 Adobe Acrobat Ribbon and Group” on page4).
Figure 5 Microsoft Word 2007 Adobe Acrobat Ribbon and Group
Show or activate PDFMaker in Microsoft Word
If you don’t see the PDF toolbar buttons in Microsoft Word, you must show or activate the PDF toolbar. Use
one of the following methods to show or activate PDFMaker.
For Office 2003 or earlier,
• Choose View > Toolbars > Acrobat PDFMaker 9.0
For Office 2007
Do the following:
• Click the Office button, and then click the Word Options button
• Click Add-Ins on the left side of the dialog box.

Creating Accessible PDF Files from Microsoft® Word
Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word
| 5
• Do one of the following:
• If PDFMOutlook or Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin is not listed, choose COM Add-
Ins from the Manage pop-up menu and click Go.
• If PDFMOutlook or Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin is listed under Disabled
Application Add-ins, select Disabled Items from the Manage pop-up menu and click Go.
• Select PDFMOutlook or Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin and click OK.
• Restart the Office application.
View PDFMaker conversion settings
PDFMaker conversion settings determine what features of the Microsoft Word document will be included in
the PDF and how they will be translated into the resulting PDF file.
Do one of the following:
• Choose Adobe PDF > Change Conversion Settings (See “Figure 6 Change PDFMaker Settings in
Word 2003” on page5)
Figure 6 Change PDFMaker Settings in Word 2003
• (Office 2007) In the Acrobat ribbon, click Preferences (See “Figure 7 Acrobat Preferences in
Word 2007” on page5).
Figure 7 Acrobat Preferences in Word 2007
If you wish to revert to the original default settings, click Restore Defaults on the Settings tab.
Settings Tab
The settings available for PDFMaker depend on the application in which you’re using PDFMaker (See
“Figure 8 PDFMaker Settings Tab” on page7).

Creating Accessible PDF Files from Microsoft® Word
Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word
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•ConversionSettings.Specifies the standard by which the PDF will be optimized. When
you choose an item in the menu, a description of that preset appears immediately below it.
• View Adobe PDF Result . Opens the converted document directly into Acrobat.
(Exception: when you choose Convert To Adobe PDF And Email.)
• Prompt For Adobe PDF File Name . Lets you enter a custom filename for the resulting
PDF. Deselect this option to save the file in the same folder as the source file, using the
same name but with a .pdf extension.
• Convert Document Information . Adds document information from the Properties
dialog box of the source file. This setting overrides the printer preferences and settings in
the Advanced panel of the Adobe PDF Settings dialog box.
Note: The Advanced Settings button opens the Adobe PDF Settings dialog box, which contains
many additional conversion options. These conversion settings apply to all Acrobat
features that create PDFs, such as Acrobat Distiller, PDFMaker, and the Acrobat
application itself.
• Create PDF/A Compliant PDF File . Creates the PDF so that it conforms to this ISO
standard for long-term preservation of electronic documents. (In the Microsoft Publisher
application alone, PDFMaker does not support the PDF/A standard.)
Note: When Conversion Settings are opened from within Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, this
option specifies PDF/A 1-a:2005. When opened from within Microsoft Visio, Access,
Microsoft Project, or AutoCAD, it specifies PDF/A 1-b:2005.
• Attach Source File . Includes the Word document that is being converted as an
attachment to the resulting PDF.
•CreateBookmarks.Converts certain elements in original Office documents to PDF
bookmarks: Word headings, Excel worksheet names, or PowerPoint titles. Selecting this
option overrides any settings on the Bookmarks tab of the Conversion Settings dialog box.
•AddLinks.Includes active links and hypertext in the PDF.
Note: If this option is deselected, but the recipient of the PDF has the Create Links From URLs
preference selected, URLs in the PDF are still active.
• Enable Accessibility And Reflow With Tagged Adobe PDF . Embeds tags in the PDF
(on by default).