Accessible math in PDF – finally!
ArticleMarch 4, 2026
ArticleMarch 4, 2026
About PDF Association staff
On the web, math is made accessible to users with disabilities by use of MathML technology. Until very recently, math in PDF wasn’t accessible to those users, who had to make do with unstructured, alternative text descriptions of mathematical formulae that cannot be represented using braille math codes.
Today, math in PDF 2.0 is finally fully accessible so that math can be navigated by capable AT providing speech and/or braille.
Printed pages have included formulas for centuries. In the digital age, the first generation of tools focused only on the visual appearance of the page. Like the rest of the computer industry that developed in the 1970s and 1980s, typesetting systems were not designed to deliver content to users who required assistive technology.
Today, a large proportion of the typesetting in authoring and publishing STEM (Scientific Technical Education Mathematics) content is performed using the LaTeX open source typesetting system. Another significant source of STEM content is Microsoft Word.
The workflow for accessible STEM content
Four critical elements that have now come together – so far only for NVDA users on Windows – that leverage ISO-standardized technologies to deliver accessible math:
- Suitable creation software
- Modern PDF with the necessary features (PDF 2.0)
- PDF reader software with the ability to process MathML
- Assistive technology that can handle MathML in the PDF context
Implications for authors
The latest version of LaTeX is now able to automatically generate accessible mathematics by including MathML in exported PDF files, using either of the ISO-standardized mechanisms designed for this purpose. Microsoft Word also includes MathML when using their “export as PDF”, but this support is not ISO-standardized.
Implications for PDF viewers
PDF viewing software is gradually catching up with current-generation ISO standards for PDF.
For example, Foxit Reader and the Firefox browser now support PDF files that include either of the ISO-standardized methods for including MathML – structure elements or the Associated Files mechanism, while Adobe’s Reader today supports the structure elements method, but not the Associated Files method.
Implications for assistive technology users
In its 2025 release, NVDA, the well-known screen-reader, together with a MathML-supporting add-in such as MathCAT, provides real-world proof that PDF 2.0’s support for accessible mathematics is a game-changer for accessibility across the entire STEM community.
The JAWS screen reader, when used with FireFox, is now also capable of reading accessible PDF documents that include mathematics.
Implications for institutions
Many STEM organizations have a large corpus of existing PDF documents along with the corresponding LaTeX source files.
In the near future, this new workflow will make it possible to recompile most of these existing LaTeX files to produce accessible PDF files without manual intervention, enabling a wholesale refreshing of existing collections of PDF content.
Implications for accessibility checking software
In order to support accessible math in PDF, accessibility checkers must support both PDF 2.0 and PDF/UA-2.
Many of today’s checkers provide inaccurate results on PDF 2.0 files because they test against PDF/UA-1 rules, which require, among other things, Formula tags to have alternative text.
Implications for organizations
Organizations using STEM content should provide their users with accessibility checkers that support PDF/UA-2.
As of February 2026, many existing tools are only aware of PDF/UA-1 (2014), which is inadequate for most STEM documents. As a result these tools incorrectly flag valid PDF/UA-2 (2024) documents as invalid.
As of Q1, 2026, PDF Association members supporting PDF/UA-2 in their accessibility checkers include:
More information
The LaTeX Project has prepared some demos, examples and short videos to help users unfamiliar with accessibility understand the difference between accessible math and its predecessors.
Conclusion
On reviewing a PDF file using this new technology, Louis Maher, Secretary of the Science and Engineering Division of the National Federation of the Blind, said:
“I could never read a PDF document with math in it - I always needed help to find out some of the content. In my testing, with these new tools, the math in PDF is spoken as correctly as it is in HTML. Your PDF work is very impressive.”
It’s time for other creation, reader and assistive technology software to come on board with ISO-standardized accessible math in PDF!
