PDFs are good for content that will be printed but do not work as well for reading content on screen. Where possible content should be published in web pages, making it more accessible to people with disabilities and those using mobile devices.
PDFs share many of the characteristics of Word documents and should always be created in line with the SCULPT principles.
PDF documents can be created in a variety of different format before being saved as PDFs. What you do in your original source document regarding accessibility will be carried over to the PDF document produced.
The software tools most commonly used to create and edit PDFs are listed below:
Acrobat Pro
Acrobat pro provides an accessibility checker tool under Tools > protect and standardize > accessibility
This will find similar issues as the tool in Word but it may be harder to make the necessary changes directly in the PDF.
The Adobe Help files provide further information about each of the issues found and how to rectify them. If this doesn’t help a Google search using the exact terms should also provide useful results.
InDesign
Adobe publishes information about creating accessible documents in InDesign and provides additional training resources.
Understanding and resolving identified issues will depend on the individual document and the software used to create it.
Common accessibility issues with PDFs
Layout
Documents designed for reading on screen should have a simpler layout. A single column layout works well for for people using mobile devices (around 50% of web traffic).
Where multi-column layouts are used for digital documents, hidden tables should not be used to control layout as this can confuse the reading order for screen readers.
Forms
Document based forms tend to be more cumbersome and less accessible than HTML forms unless the intention is for these to be printed and completed offline.
If we are collecting data electronically, we need to consider
- How the data is being transmitted – is it using an encrypted channel?
- Where is the data being stored? What country will it be physically stored in? What system will it be held in and for how long?
- What are we collecting and why? Do we already hold some of this information?
- For any data collection we’ll need to prepare a DPIA (Data Protection Impact Assessment).
If data is to be submitted electronically, we can use MsForms and the sportscotland website to build forms that are more accessible and provide better workflow options than document-based forms.
Text sizes
Minimum text size should always be 12pt.
It’s best to avoid serif fonts for reading large passages of text on screen.
ALLCAPS and italics should be used sparingly and ALLCAPS should never be used a substitute for using proper headings.
Meta data
Meta data is the data about the document, and it is important to name documents accurately as meta data can appear in search engine results. It’s also essential to ensure that no sensitive data is inadvertently included in the meta data.
File name – When a document is downloaded to a user’s device this file name will be shown on their system. Try to ensure that it is short and descriptive and be careful when including dates and version info. If version information is included in the filename, the next version will have a different URL – sometimes this is desirable but in other cases it’s useful to provide a persistent URL for all versions.
Comments and tracked changes – these may still be present in the document but hidden from view. Make sure that these are all accepted/removed before publishing.
Document title – This is used by search engines and is also the first thing read by screen readers. This should be the same as the title on the page
Author – In most cases the author of the document should be sportscotland (this can appear in search results).
If a document has been produced on another system (home computer, consultant, partner organisation) it’s important that the author information is correct.