You can use Acrobat to make PDFs meet the common accessibility standards, such as the latest version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and PDF/UA (Universal Access, or ISO 14289). Acrobat provides the following accessibility tools:

• Prepare for accessibility: A predefined action automates many tasks, checks accessibility, and provides instructions for items that require manual fixes. Quickly find and fix problem areas.
• Check for accessibility: It verifies whether the document conforms to accessibility standards, such as PDF/UA and WCAG 2.0.
• Open accessibility report: This report summarizes the findings of the accessibility check and contains links to tools and documentation that assist in fixing problems.
• Reading options: It includes settings for the available reading options. 
  
• Fix reading order: The Reading Order tool can examine the structure, reading order, and contents of a PDF.
• Save as accessible text: This allows you to read the saved text file in a word-processing application and emulate the end-user experience of readers who use a braille printer to read the document.

You can use the Prepare for accessibility tool to check and make a PDF accessible. It prompts you to address accessibility issues, such as a missing document description or title. It looks for common elements that need further action, such as scanned text, form fields, tables, and images. You can run a Prepare for accessibility action on all PDFs except dynamic forms (XFA documents) or portfolios.

Fix accessibility issues (Acrobat Pro)

To fix a failed check after running the Prepare for accessibility check, select ellipsis in the Accessibility Checker panel on the right and select one of the following options from the context menu:

• Fix: Acrobat either fixes the item automatically or displays a dialog box prompting you to fix the item manually.
• Skip Rule: Deselects this option in the Accessibility Checker Options dialog box for future checks of this document, and change the item status to Skipped.
• Explain: Opens the online Help where you can get more details about the accessibility issue.
• Check Again: Runs the checker again on all items. Choose this option after modifying one or more items.
• Show Report: Displays a report with links to tips on how to repair failed checks.
• Options: Opens the Accessibility Checker Options dialog box, so you can select which checks are performed.

Accessibility issues

Document

Prevent security settings from interfering with screen readers

A document author can specify that no part of an accessible PDF is to be copied, printed, extracted, commented on, or edited. This setting could interfere with a screen reader's ability to read the document because screen readers must be able to copy or extract the document's text to convert it to speech.

This flag reports whether it's necessary to turn on the security settings that allow accessibility.

To fix the rule automatically, go to All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Check for accessibility and then ensure that the option Accessibility permission flat is set is selected before running the check. Then, select Open accessibility report, and from the right panel, right-click the Accessibility permission flag and select Fix.

To manually fix the accessibility permissions:

If your assistive technology product is registered with Adobe as a Trusted Agent, you can read PDFs that might be inaccessible to another assistive technology product. Acrobat recognizes when a screen reader or other product is a Trusted Agent and overrides security settings that would typically limit access to the content for accessibility purposes. However, the security settings remain in effect for all other purposes, such as to prevent printing, copying, extracting, commenting, or editing text.

Image-only PDF

Reports whether the document contains non-text content that is not accessible. If the document appears to contain text, but doesn't contain fonts, it could be an image-only PDF file.

To fix the rule automatically, go to All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Check for accessibility. Then, ensure that the option Document is not-image only PDF is deselected before running the check.

To fix this rule check manually, use OCR to recognize text in scanned images:

Tagged PDF

If this rule check fails, the document isn't tagged to specify the correct reading order.

To fix the item automatically, go to All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Check for accessibility. Then, ensure that the option Document is tagged PDF is selected before running the check. Acrobat automatically adds tags to the PDF.

To specify tags manually, do one of the following:

• Enable tagging in the source application and re-create the PDF.
• Select All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Automatically tag PDF. If there are any issues, the Add Tags Report appears in the navigation pane. It lists potential problems by page, provides a navigational link to each problem, and suggests ways to fix them.
• Select All tools > Prepare for Accessibility > Fix reading order and create the tags tree. For more information, see Reading Order.
• Open the Tags panel and create the tags tree manually. To display the Tags panel, select the hamburger menu  (Windows) > View or select the View menu (macOS), and then select Show/Hide > Side panels > Accessibility tags. For more information, see the Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panel.

Logical reading order

Verify this rule check manually. Make sure that the reading order displayed in the Tags panel coincides with the logical reading order of the document.

Document language

Setting the document language in a PDF enables some screen readers to switch to the appropriate language. This check determines whether the primary text language for the PDF is specified. If the check fails, set the language.

To set the language automatically, select Primary Language in the Accessibility Checker tab and then choose Fix from the Options  menu. Choose a language in the Set Reading Language dialog box, and then select OK.

To set the language manually, do one of the following:

• Choose the hamburger menu  (Windows) or the File menu (macOS) > Properties > Advanced, and then select a language from the drop-down list in the Reading Options section. (If the language doesn't appear in the drop-down list, you can enter the ISO 639 code for the language in the Language field.) This setting applies the primary language for the entire PDF.
• Set the language for all text in a subtree of the tags tree. Open the Tags  panel. Expand the Tags root and select an element. Then choose Properties from the Options  menu. Choose a language from the Language drop-down list. (To display the Tags panel, select the hamburger menu  (Windows) > View or select the View menu (macOS), and then select Show/Hide > Side panels > Accessibility tags.)
• Set the language for a block of text by selecting the text element or container element in the Content  panel. Then, right-click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (macOS) the text, choose Properties from the context menu, and choose a language from the Language drop-down list. (To display the Content panel, select the hamburger menu  (Windows) > View or select the View menu (macOS), and then select Show/Hide > Side panels > Content.)

Title

Reports whether there is a title in the Acrobat application title bar.

To fix the title automatically, select Title in the Accessibility Checker tab, and choose Fix from the Options  menu. Enter the document title in the Description dialog box (deselect Leave As Is, if necessary).

To fix the title manually: