Knowing how to make a PDF accessible is a practical skill every business, agency, or content team needs in 2026. Courts treat inaccessible PDFs the same as inaccessible websites. The ADA Title II deadline passed in April 2026 for government entities, and the European Accessibility Act, which took effect June 2025, now requires accessible documents for any business selling to EU customers.
The good news however, is that most accessibility fixes are straightforward once you know where to look. This guide walks through the process from start to finish, whether you are creating a new PDF or fixing an existing one.
Here’s a simpler, more reader-friendly version that keeps the important details without being overly technical.
The Easiest Way to Make a PDF Accessible
The easiest way to create an accessible PDF is to make your original document accessible before you save it as a PDF. Whether you’re using Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Adobe InDesign, it’s much easier to build accessibility into the document from the start than to repair a PDF afterward.
If you’re using Microsoft Word, follow these steps before exporting your file.
Step 1: Use Built-In Heading Styles
Don’t make headings by simply increasing the font size or making text bold. Instead, use Word’s built-in Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 styles. These are converted into proper PDF headings that screen readers use to navigate the document. Without real heading styles, people using assistive technology may struggle to move through your content.
Step 2: Add Alt Text to Images
Every meaningful image should include alt text.
To add it, right-click the image and select Edit Alt Text. Write a short description that explains what the image shows or why it’s important. If an image is only decorative and doesn’t add information, mark it as decorative so screen readers skip it.
Step 3: Create Proper Tables
Always create tables using Word’s Insert Table feature instead of using spaces, tabs, or drawn lines. If your table has column headings, mark the first row as a header row. This helps screen readers understand how the data is organized and makes large tables much easier to navigate.
Step 4: Use Descriptive Link Text
Avoid generic links like “Click here” or “Read more.” Instead, make the link describe where it goes, such as Download the PDF Accessibility Checklist or View the 2026 Compliance Guide
Descriptive links help everyone, especially screen reader users who often browse a page by links alone.
Step 5: Run Word’s Accessibility Checker
Before exporting your document, use Word’s built-in Accessibility Checker. Go to Review, then Check Accessibility. Finally, you can fix any issues it finds. This can identify common problems such as missing alt text, incorrect headings, or unlabeled tables before the PDF is created.
Step 6: Save the PDF with Accessibility Tags
When you’re ready to save the document as a PDF, make sure accessibility tags are included.
In Word, go to File > Save As > PDF > Options, then check Document structure tags for accessibility. This step is essential. Without these tags, even a well-structured Word document can become an inaccessible PDF because screen readers won’t be able to understand its structure.
How to Make an Existing PDF Accessible: Step by Step
If you do not have the source document, like the original Word or InDesign file, you need to remediate the PDF directly. The main tool for this is Adobe Acrobat Pro ($23/month) combined with a checker like PAC 2026 (free) or ADAcertify.
Step 1: Check whether the PDF Has Readable Text
Press Ctrl+F (or Command+F on Mac) and search for a random word in the document. If the search finds it, the PDF has machine-readable text. If not, the PDF is a scanned image and you need to apply OCR before anything else. Skip to the scanned PDF section below.
Step 2: Check Whether the PDF is Tagged
In Acrobat Pro, click on View, then Show/Hide. Head to Navigation Panes, then Tags. If the Tags panel is empty, the document has no accessibility tags and needs full tagging.
Step 3: Add or Repair Tags Using Acrobat Pro
Go to All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Automatically tag PDF. Acrobat’s auto-tagger creates a starting point, but you will need to review and correct the output. Auto-tagging does not guarantee a fully accessible document.
Step 4: Fix The Reading Order
Again, All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Reading Order. Acrobat’s Reading Order tool shows you the tag sequence as numbered blocks on the page. Check that the numbers follow the logical reading flow. For multi-column documents, columns should read top to bottom, then move to the next column. Drag blocks to reorder them where the sequence is wrong.
Step 5: Add or Correct Alt Text for Images
Right-click each figure tag in the Tags panel > Properties > Tag tab > Alternate Text. Write a description that conveys the content and purpose of the image in context. For decorative images, leave the alt text field empty and mark the element as an artifact using the Reading Order tool.
Step 6: Fix Table Structure
In the Tags panel, find each Table tag. Check that header cells are tagged as TH and data cells as TD. For each TH tag: right-click > Properties > add the appropriate scope attribute (Column or Row). This is what tells screen readers which data cells the header applies to.
Step 7: Fix Form Fields (if the PDF has forms)
All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Fix reading order. Alternatively, use the Forms tool to review each field. Each field needs a Tooltip (the accessible label screen readers announce). Check that tab order moves through the form in a logical sequence.
Step 8: Set the Document Properties
Before you finish, update the PDF’s document properties. Open File > Properties and add a meaningful title in the Description tab. Next, set the correct document language under Advanced > Reading Options. Finally, open the Initial View tab and choose Title under Display Document Title. This ensures the document’s title appears in the PDF viewer instead of the file name, making it easier for users to recognize the document.
Step 9: Check Security Settings
Go to File > Properties > Security. Ensure that security settings do not restrict screen reader access. If permissions are restricted, check “Enable text access to screen reader devices for the visually impaired” in the Permissions section.
Step 10: Run a Final Accessibility Check
Navigate to All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Check for accessibility. Review every failure and warning. Repeat until the document passes on all automated checks, then do a manual screen reader review.
How to Make a PDF Accessible: What To Do When Your PDF is Just an Image
A scanned PDF is a picture. Screen readers cannot read pictures. No amount of tagging or alt text will make a scanned document accessible until the text content itself is machine-readable.
Step 1: Apply OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
In Acrobat Pro: All tools > Scan and OCR > Recognize Text > In This File. Select the pages, choose your language, and run the recognition. This creates a text layer on top of the scanned image.
Step 2: Review the OCR Output
OCR is not perfect. Open the document and use Ctrl+F to search for words you can see on the page. If the search fails, the OCR missed that section. Review the recognized text layer in Acrobat and correct any errors that would make the document misleading or incomprehensible.
Step 3: Apply Full Accessibility Tagging
Once the OCR layer is in place, follow the same steps as fixing an existing PDF above. Scanned documents that have gone through OCR still need full heading tags, reading order correction, alt text for any images, and proper document properties.
Step 4: Check and Validate.
Scanned PDFs that have been remediated need more thorough manual checking than born-digital documents because OCR errors can produce garbled text that automated checkers cannot catch but that renders the content meaningless to a screen reader user.
How to Make a PDF Accessible for Screen Readers Specifically
Screen readers navigate PDFs by headings, links, and form fields. They read content in the tag order, not the visual order. They announce image alt text in place of the image. Here are the specific fixes that matter most for screen reader usability:
Heading Navigation: Make sure headings follow a logical hierarchy: H1 for the document title, H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections. Screen reader users can pull up a list of all headings and jump directly to a section, exactly the way sighted users scan a table of contents.
Bookmarks for Long Documents: Documents over 9 pages should have PDF bookmarks corresponding to each major section. Bookmarks appear in Acrobat’s Bookmarks panel and give screen reader users a navigational overview of the whole document.
Meaningful Link Text: Screen reader users can navigate by links alone. A list of “click here” links is useless without surrounding context. Use link text that explains the destination or action.
Form Tab Order: Test your form by pressing Tab repeatedly with no mouse. Fields should highlight in a logical sequence from top to bottom and left to right. Form fields that do not receive focus when tabbing, or that appear in a confusing order, are inaccessible to keyboard and screen reader users.
Table Navigation: Test tables by navigating cell to cell with a screen reader. Headers should be announced before data cells. A table where the header is only visually present but not tagged as a header provides no context for the data.
How to Check Your Work After Making a PDF Accessible
1. Run an Automated Check: Use PAC 2026 (free, Windows), Adobe Acrobat’s built-in checker, or ADAcertify’s scanner. All three test against WCAG and PDF/UA. Fix every failure before moving on.
2. Open the Document in a Screen Reader: NVDA is free on Windows. VoiceOver is built into Mac and iOS. Navigate through the document by headings, read through a few paragraphs, and test any tables and forms. Listen for: reading order that makes sense, image descriptions that convey meaning, form fields that announce their labels, and table headers that provide context for data.
3. Check on Mobile: Open the PDF on a phone or tablet. If the content reflows and remains readable at different zoom levels, the structural tagging is solid. If text becomes cut off or the layout breaks, there are likely tagging issues affecting content reflow.
When to Use ADAcertify Instead of Doing It Yourself
Manual PDF remediation in Acrobat Pro is the right approach when you have one or two straightforward documents, a developer familiar with PDF tag structures, and time to do it properly.
For most businesses, those three conditions are not all present at the same time. That is where ADAcertify fills the gap.
Upload a PDF directly or paste a URL to a document on your site. The scanner identifies every failure against WCAG 2.1 AA, PDF/UA, and Section 508. AI-assisted remediation then fixes structural and tagging issues directly from your dashboard in minutes, without opening Acrobat, without navigating tag trees manually, and without needing a developer.
For complex documents where AI alone is not sufficient, certified accessibility specialists handle the full remediation. You request it from the same dashboard and receive a corrected, fully accessible PDF along with a compliance report covering all three standards.
ADAcertify’s paid plan covers up to 50 PDFs and 100 pages for AI-assisted remediation, which handles the complete document library of most small and mid-size businesses. Larger or more complex projects get a custom quote.
Start your ADAcertify trial and make your first PDF accessible today.
Frequently Asked Questions About How to Make a PDF Accessible
How long does it take to make a PDF accessible?
It depends on the document. A simple, single-column text document with no images or forms can be made accessible in 30 minutes using Word’s built-in accessibility checker and a clean export to PDF. A 50-page report with complex tables, charts, multi-column layouts, and forms can take several hours of manual work in Acrobat Pro. For businesses with large document libraries, AI-assisted remediation through a platform like ADAcertify is significantly faster than manual work per document.
Can I make a PDF accessible without Adobe Acrobat?
Yes, partially. For new documents, creating an accessible PDF from Word, Google Docs, or LibreOffice with accessibility tags enabled is free. For fixing existing PDFs, the options without Acrobat are more limited. PAVE (free, browser-based) can apply some fixes. PDFix Desktop Lite (free, Windows/Mac/Linux) offers more comprehensive editing. For thorough remediation of complex PDFs, Acrobat Pro or a professional remediation service is the most reliable path.
Does making a PDF accessible change how it looks?
No. Tagging a PDF does not change its visual presentation. Tags describe the document’s structure for assistive technology but are invisible to sighted readers. The only exception is if you are also fixing color contrast issues, which requires design changes, or if you are restructuring content for better reading order, which may involve layout adjustments.
What is the difference between a tagged PDF and an accessible PDF?
A tagged PDF has a tag structure. An accessible PDF has a correct, complete tag structure along with all the other requirements: proper alt text, logical reading order, correct document properties, accessible tables and forms, and color contrast. Every accessible PDF is tagged. Not every tagged PDF is accessible: auto-tagged PDFs often have wrong reading order, empty alt text, and improperly structured tables.
How do I know if my PDF is accessible?
Run it through an automated checker (PAC 2026, Acrobat Pro’s checker, or ADAcertify) and then open it with a screen reader and navigate through it. If the automated check passes and the screen reader experience is coherent and complete, the PDF meets basic accessibility requirements. For legal situations or government procurement, a professional accessibility audit with full documentation is the defensible standard.
