PDF Association logo

Discover pdfa.org

Key resources

Get involved

How do you find the right PDF technology vendor?
Use the Solution Agent to ask the entire PDF communuity!
The PDF Association celebrates its members’ public statements
of support
for ISO-standardized PDF technology.

Member Area

New Accessibility Techniques for PDF: Lists

November 2025 by PDF Association staff

The PDF Association’s third release of its Techniques for Accessible PDF focuses on lists!

This new guidance offers 15 correct (PASS) and 10 incorrect (FAIL) examples of list tagging to help authors properly tag lists in PDF documents.

Proper tagging supports assistive technologies, ensures correct list semantics (ordered, unordered, nested, etc.), and enables accurate reflow and conversions. The provided techniques and failure examples cover all basic types of lists and address common pitfalls. As always, these techniques are vendor-neutral and community-maintained.

The PDF Association’s third release of its Techniques for Accessible PDF focuses on lists!

This new guidance offers 15 correct (PASS) and 10 incorrect (FAIL) examples of list tagging to help authors properly tag lists in PDF documents.

Proper tagging supports assistive technologies, ensures correct list semantics (ordered, unordered, nested, etc.), and enables accurate reflow and conversions. The provided techniques and failure examples cover all basic types of lists and address common pitfalls. As always, these techniques are vendor-neutral and community-maintained.

Library of Congress blog post: PDF is here to stay

March 2020 by PDF Association staff
Article


The Signal, a Library of Congress blog, has a new post about archiving with PDF by the Library of Congress’ Kate Murray, the PDF Association’s Duff Johnson, and Kevin De … Read more

PDF Association logo
Visit PDF Association staff's profile.

February 2020 by Prof. Chris Prom
Chris Prom
Visit Prof. Chris Prom‘s profile.

Archives, libraries, and other memory institutions have experimented with PDF for archiving email, but have not widely implemented them as … Read more

Article

February 2020 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

When people talk to me about PDF technology they are generally pretty happy about it. End users feel that they … Read more

Article

January 2020 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

“I’m sorry, Derek, but, now that Kelsey has learned how to convert JPEGs into PDFs, we can’t justify keeping you … Read more

Article

December 2019 by Thomas Zellmann
Picture of Thomas Zellmann
Visit Thomas Zellmann‘s profile.

Thomas Zellmann discusses the benefits of OCR and of making PDFs fully searchable, especially as input for AI systems.

Article

November 2019 by Klaas Posselt
Visit Klaas Posselt‘s profile.

The PDF/UA Technical Working Group released Tagged PDF Best Practice Guide: Syntax – to provide developers and expert users with … Read more

Article

November 2019 by Thomas Zellmann
Picture of Thomas Zellmann
Visit Thomas Zellmann‘s profile.

AI applications for business intelligence processing can extract information from unstructured “born digital” documents, but many archives include years (or … Read more

Article

November 2019 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

Apple’s desktop suite, Pages, Keynote and Numbers, now supports creation of tagged (and thus, accessible and reusable) PDF.

Article

October 2019 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

As of October 7, 2019, websites and mobile applications in the U.S. will be assessed as “public accommodations”, and the … Read more

Article

October 2019 by Thomas Zellmann
Picture of Thomas Zellmann
Visit Thomas Zellmann‘s profile.

To survive a great flood Noah brought pairs from every species aboard his ark. But is this approach – gathering … Read more

Article

September 2019 by Duff Johnson
Duff Johnson
Visit Duff Johnson‘s profile.

Earlier this year we covered the release of the Mueller Report covering the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in … Read more

Article

Member News

WordPress Cookie Notice by Real Cookie Banner