How Higher Education Institutions Can Create Accessible PDFs

Higher education institutions create and share a wide range of PDF documents, from course materials and syllabi to research papers, student forms, handbooks, and administrative documents. While these files may look perfectly usable visually, their underlying structure can create barriers for students, faculty, staff, and researchers who use assistive technologies. Creating an accessible PDF is therefore not simply about making a document look clear. It requires the content to be structured in a way that allows assistive technologies to understand and navigate it. For higher education institutions, the goal should be to make PDF accessibility part of the content lifecycle—from authoring and conversion to testing and publishing.

Start With Accessible Source Documents

PDF accessibility starts before a document becomes a PDF. Faculty and staff should use proper document structure when creating content. Headings should represent the hierarchy of the content rather than simply being made visually larger or bolder. Lists should be created as actual lists, tables should use appropriate table structures, and links should have meaningful descriptions. Using accessible source documents reduces the amount of remediation required later and provides a stronger foundation for creating accessible PDFs.

Use Tagged PDF to Provide Structure

One of the most important elements of an accessible PDF is its tag structure. Tagged PDF provides semantic information about content and helps establish the intended reading order and structure of a document. Tags can identify headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, figures, and other elements. For example, a heading that appears visually prominent should also be identified as a heading in the PDF's structure. A list that looks like a list should be represented as a list rather than as a collection of separate text lines. Correct tagging helps assistive technologies interpret the document according to the author's intended structure.

Establish a Logical Reading Order

The visual position of content on a page does not always determine the order in which assistive technology reads it. A two-column article, for example, may appear straightforward visually but could be read incorrectly if the underlying reading order is not defined properly. Higher education institutions should check that:

• Headings are presented in a logical hierarchy.
• Text follows the intended reading sequence.
• Lists are read in the correct order.
• Tables are structured appropriately.
• Headers, footers, and decorative elements do not interrupt the main content.
• Content spanning multiple columns is read correctly.

Make Images and Figures Accessible

Educational documents frequently contain diagrams, charts, photographs, illustrations, and other visual information. Meaningful images should have appropriate alternative text that communicates the information a reader needs to understand the content. Decorative images, on the other hand, should not unnecessarily interrupt the reading experience. For charts and complex figures, simply describing the image as "chart" or "graph" is rarely sufficient. The alternative text or surrounding content should communicate the relevant information conveyed by the visual.

Pay Attention to Tables, Links, and Forms

Some of the most useful content in higher education PDFs can also create accessibility challenges.

Tables

Tables should have a logical structure so that assistive technologies can associate data cells with the appropriate headers. Complex tables may require additional attention to their structure and relationships.

Links

Links should have meaningful text that communicates their destination or purpose. A series of links that simply says "click here" provides little context to someone navigating the document with assistive technology.

Forms

Student applications, registration forms, surveys, and administrative documents often contain interactive fields. Form fields should have meaningful labels, logical tab order, and appropriate properties so users can navigate and complete them.

Don't Overlook Scanned PDFs

Higher education institutions often have large collections of legacy documents, including scanned books, archived forms, research materials, and institutional records. A scanned PDF may essentially be a collection of page images rather than actual text. Optical character recognition (OCR) can help convert the visual text into machine-readable text, but OCR alone does not make a document accessible. The resulting PDF may still require appropriate tagging, reading order, alternative text, table structure, and other accessibility improvements. This is particularly important for institutions managing large document repositories where legacy PDFs cannot simply be replaced with newly authored documents.

Validate PDFs Before Publishing

Accessibility should be tested before a PDF is distributed to students, faculty, or the public. Automated accessibility checkers can identify many technical issues and provide an efficient way to review documents at scale. However, automated testing should be complemented by manual review and, where appropriate, testing with assistive technologies. Institutions can also use PDF accessibility standards to establish clear technical requirements. Testing should consider both technical conformance and the actual user experience.

Build a Repeatable PDF Accessibility Workflow

For institutions producing thousands of documents each year, treating every PDF as an individual remediation project may not be sustainable. A more effective approach is to establish an institution-wide workflow that defines:

• Who is responsible for creating accessible source documents
• Which templates should be used
• When PDFs should be tested
• Which accessibility standards apply
• How legacy PDFs should be handled
• When manual remediation is required
• How accessibility issues should be tracked and resolved
• How frequently published documents should be reviewed

Institutions should also consider the volume and complexity of their content. A small number of simple documents may be manageable through manual processes, while large repositories may require a combination of automation, validation, and expert remediation.

A Practical Checklist for Accessible PDFs

Before publishing a PDF, higher education teams can ask:

• Is the PDF properly tagged?
• Is the reading order logical?
• Are headings correctly structured?
• Are lists and tables properly tagged?
• Do meaningful images have appropriate alternative text?
• Are decorative elements excluded from the reading experience where appropriate?
• Are links descriptive?
• Are form fields properly labeled and navigable?
• Is the document language defined?
• Is the document title set correctly?
• Has the PDF been checked using accessibility tools?
• Has the document been manually reviewed where necessary?

Make Accessibility Part of the Publishing Process

Creating accessible PDFs should not be treated as a final step after a document has already been published. Accessibility is easier to manage when it is incorporated into the way institutions create, convert, review, and distribute content. For higher education institutions, this means giving faculty and staff the right guidance and templates, establishing clear accessibility responsibilities, testing documents before publication, and developing scalable processes for large collections of existing PDFs. The objective is not simply to produce PDFs that pass an accessibility check. It is to create documents whose structure, content, and navigation allow students, faculty, staff, and researchers to access and use information effectively, regardless of how they interact with the document.