Document Accessibility Checker - PDFs

With PAVE you make your PDF documents barrier-free so that they can be correctly interpreted by common reading programs. The visual representation of your PDF remains unchanged. The ICT Accessibility Lab at the ZHAW School of Engineering developed PAVE and makes it available free of charge for personal use.

Upload your PDF document to PAVE.
Attention: The maximum permitted file size is 5 megabytes.
PAVE makes the corrections that can be made automatically directly.
Simply carry out the remaining correction suggestions in PAVE yourself.
Download the now accessible PDF document. The PDF document will remain stored on the PAVE server for a maximum of 3 weeks if you do not delete it manually beforehand.

Disclaimer

Despite all care, content or visual changes to the document cannot be completely ruled out when editing with PAVE. It is up to the user to review the generated PDF documents. The ZHAW assumes no liability whatsoever.

Why are accessible PDF documents important?

Visually impaired people can have electronic text documents read aloud using appropriate software. However, this only works well for PDF documents that are appropriately tagged, i.e. provided with the necessary meta information, which is often not the case. This common problem is now solved in a simple way: make your PDF documents accessible directly in PAVE.

The ICT-Accessibility Lab has previously developed plugins for creating accessible PDF documents from MS Word and MS-PowerPoint, but these cannot be used to make existing PDF documents accessible. This gap is now closed with PAVE.

Required Fixes for PDFs

Scanned Documents
- Do NOT scan documents using the printer/scanners. Scanned documents are pictures and, as such, any text in them cannot be read by a screen reader.
Alternative Text (Alt Text).
- Alternative (Alt) Text is meant to convey the “why” of the image as it relates to the content of a document. It is read aloud to users by screen reader software. Do not use generic descriptions such as "Club Picture"; try "Yearbook Club Photo of members on the main staircase"
- If your image has words, you will need to type out that information unless it is also stated in another part of the document. Text boxes are considered images; they must have alternative text
- If your image is purely decorative or doesn't add anything to your document, it should be tagged as "decorative" or "Artifact" so they are not read by Assistive Technology devices.
Color Contrast
- The color contrast ratio between text and background must be 4.5:1 or higher
- Color Contrast Checker: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
- Color descriptors should not be used as the sole identifying factor of an object
  - EX: "Click the red button to go back, click the green button to continue" - Those using screen readers may have trouble finding the correct button due to a lack of description. Those with color blindness may have a difficult time distinguishing the two colors.
Content should be tagged
- Documents without tags do not provide information describing the logical structure for Assistive Technology users.
  - Links should be informative and have correct URL/location targets. Do not use 'Click Here.'

View the Altoona Area School District website.

- - Tab Order
    - When tabbing through items, the movement of the cursor should be in the same order as the visual layout of the page
  - Formatting Text
    - The built-in style features should be used for Text, Titles, Subtitles, Alignment, Line Spacing and Bullets and Numbering
  - Tables