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February 22, 2021: What to do with a low PDF score in Ally, Part 2 of 4
Accessibility Goal of the Week
Last week in part 1 of our PDF series, we addressed how to improve a PDF Ally score when the source document is available to fix and re-upload. This week we will discuss how to begin to fix a PDF using Acrobat Pro DC if you do not have the source document.
Downloading Acrobat Pro DC
To perform the workflow outlined below, you will need to have Acrobat Pro DC installed on your computer. All DVC employees can download Acrobat using their DVC credentials. Please refer to to the Download Acrobat Pro DC from the Internet tutorial for step-by-step instructions.
Run the "Make Accessible" Wizard
After you've made sure you have access to Acrobat Pro DC, the next step is to run the "Make Accessible" Wizard. This wizard walks you through steps to apply several major elements to your PDF for accessibility, including tagging and alternative text for images. For some PDFs, running this wizard may be all that's necessary to get to a higher Ally score!
Add the 'Action Wizard' to your toolbar
- In Acrobat Pro DC, click 'Tools' in the upper left corner. The tools menu will appear.
- Scroll down until you see 'Action Wizard'. Click 'Add'. You should now see the Action
Wizard on your toolbar at the right side of the screen.
- Click 'Document' at the top to go back to your document.
Run the 'Make Accessible Wizard'
- Click on 'Action Wizard', and then 'Make Accessible' in the Actions List that appears. Note that under "Files to be processed" your document
title should appear.
- Click 'Start'.
- The wizard will begin. Click through each screen, following the prompts. Below is
text and image information about each screen, followed by a brief video demonstration
of how to run the wizard.
Description: Include a title for your document because this is what will be announced first to someone using a screen reader, and lets them quickly determine if this is the document they want to read.
Recognize Text - General Settings: The wizard will scan the document and detect any text it sees. This is known as "Optical Character Recognition", or OCR. You can also select the language of the document.
Is this document intended to be used as a fillable form?: If your PDF is a fillable form, you can select "Yes, Detect Form Fields".
Set reading language: This allows you to set the language which screenreading software will use when it voices the content.
Acrobat will detect all figures in the document and display any figures will missing alternate text: If any images without alternate text are found, it will take you through the process of adding it for each image.
Accessibility Checker Options: I recommend leaving all the settings as is. This will ensure a thorough check of the document's accessibility. Click "Start Checking".
Once you run the Accessibility Checker, you will see a results panel appear to the left with symbols next to each criteria checked. Items that "passed" will have a green check mark. Items that "failed" will have a red X.
NOTE: The checker will always recommend that you manually check Logical Reading Order and Color Contrast. Color contrast can only be changed in the source document. We will address checking logical reading order in a future Goal of the Week.
For items that failed the check, right-click on the item. You can select "Fix" to go through steps to fix the problem, "Explain" for information about what the problem means, or "Skip Rule" if you've already addressed the problem.
Do not stress if some of the fixes seem confusing. Do what you can, and then try re-uploading the new PDF in Ally to see if your score improves.
Here is a brief video demonstrating how to run the 'Make Accessible Wizard':
For some PDFs, running this wizard may be all that's necessary to get to a higher Ally score! Try uploading the new version and see if your score changes. Next week, we'll explore a further step you can take to make your PDFs even more accessible.