When creating digital documents, a goal is to create documents that are accessible to all readers. This goal can be attained by applying best practices in designing, creating, and sharing those documents. Foundational best practices are the same regardless of whether your document is in HTML, Word, Google Docs, PDF, or another document format.
Step 1. Apply universal best practices in creating your document
Optimize the accessibility features in your platform:
- Create structured headings.
- Add alternative text to images.
- Ensure sufficient color contrast.
- Use meaningful link text.
- Create simple tables with column and row headers.
Step 2. Clean house
A big step in ensuring your content is accessible is deleting content that is no longer needed.听 If content is no longer actively maintained but is needed for reference, content should be clearly marked as 鈥淎rchived.鈥�
The Office of the ADA Coordinator has published Archived Web Content guidance to help you determine whether older content should be deleted, archived, or remediated.
In Canvas courses, a tool is available called , which can help with finding unused course materials and either deleting them or downloading them for offline storage.
Step 3. Use accessibility checkers
Most document authoring tools include automated accessibility checkers that evaluate your content for accessibility and provide feedback. Most accessibility checkers provide recommendations for how to fix the issues found.
Accessibility checkers are available in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, Google Docs and Slides (via a third-party extension called Grackle), Canvas, and Canva. There are also multiple tools available for checking accessibility of PDF.
For an annotated list of accessibility checkers for documents, see the Document Accessibility Checkers section of our Tools page.
Step 4. Conduct a manual review
Built-in accessibility checkers are helpful, but they cannot evaluate content for logical reading order or if content like alternative text is appropriate for the document鈥檚 audience, purpose, or context.听 After using accessibility checkers and fixing the issues found by the checkers, content authors should also manually check the following items, some of which should already exist in the documents (see Step 1):
- Do headings form an outline of the page content?
- Do images have meaningful alternative text , and are images that are included purely for visual interest marked as decorative?
- Are tables used solely for presenting rows and columns of data (not for layout), and are column and row headers properly identified?
- Are lists used to identify all content that can be described as a list of something?
- Does the document have a title that describes its topic or purpose?
- Has the language of the document (or individual parts of a multilingual document) been defined?
See our Digital Accessibility Checklist for additional best practices and accessibility topics.
Step 5. Think Before You PDF
All the work you’ve done in the first three steps might be lost if you export to PDF in a way that does not support accessibility.听 Many authoring tools do not preserve accessibility features when exporting to PDF. Those that do, such as Microsoft Word, require specific techniques to ensure accessibility is preserved (e.g., use 鈥淪ave as PDF鈥�, not 鈥淧rint to PDF鈥�).
Before creating, uploading, or linking to a PDF, pause and ask: Does this need to be a PDF?
For most instructional and informational content, consider the following options instead of PDFs:
- HTML web pages
- Canvas pages
- Microsoft Word or PowerPoint
- Library Links and Permalinks
There are situations where PDFs remain appropriate or necessary, including:
- Archival documents
- Official printable forms
- Complex designs
- Legal documents
- Scientific publications
- Long form publications
- External submissions
Decision Trees for PDF use at UW
PDFs present particular accessibility challenges because they are not inherently accessible by default. A PDF must include specific structural information, such as headings, reading order, table markup, and alternative text for images to be usable by assistive technology. 听When PDFs are used, accessibility is still required, but remediation should never be the first or only strategy. We have created Role-based Decision Trees to help faculty and staff make meaningful choices when it comes to PDFs.
Other Document Accessibility Resources
Little Forest: PDF remediation tool
Little Forest is a tool that helps remediate inaccessible documents by adding tags and alternative text (alt text) to high-priority PDFs. It can help to make the PDF remediation process more efficient, but does not eliminate the need for manual remediation. It is best understood as support for intentional PDF use, not a solution that makes all PDFs acceptable by default. This tool is available to anyone with a 91探花NetID, but it currently prioritized for academic course content, and is not yet approved for use in 91探花Medicine. For additional information, see our Little Forest page.
Digital Document Remediation Service
UWIT Accessible Technology Services (ATS) will remediate a limited number of digital documents without charge through a service supported by UWIT. 听Please follow all of the above steps before submitting documents for remediation. If additional remediation is needed, and Little Forest does not seem to be a viable option, PDFs can be submitted directly to ATS for remediation.听 For details and limitations, see the Digital Document Remediation section of our Help听辫补驳别.
Outsourcing PDF Remediation
The ATS Digital Documentation Service described above is in high demand and currently working through a long backlog of requests. For faster service, you may want to hire a third-party provider of PDF remediation services.
There are many vendors who operate in this space. The State of Washington is in the final stages of an RFP to select preferred PDF remediation vendors in various categories. 听We will update this page with additional information once we have it.
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