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Disability Services and Support
Office of the Provost

PDF Files

In order for the content of a PDF file to be accessible it must be text-based. Some PDF files are created as “images” which are not accessible to screen reader software.

PDF files should be “tagged” to be fully accessible. This allows for:

  • logical reading order
  • images with text descriptions
  • descriptions for table structures

Note: PDFs created by copiers are image files.

There are ways to convert PDFs into text-based. Acrobat Pro is required to do this. Instructions for making accessible PDFs and checking the accessibility of your PDF files.