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Tagged PDF Best Practice Guide: Syntax

A publication of the PDF/UA Technical Working Group, this document is intended for developers implementing tagged PDF and PDF/UA. Others (including authors with some technical knowledge of PDF’s accessibility mechanisms) may also benefit from this document.

Contents include:

  • General provisions
  • Forward-looking guidance for PDF 2.0
  • Guidance for each standard structure type defined in PDF 1.7
  • Guidance on the use of attributes and properties defined in PDF 1.7
  • Text characteristics
  • Other features of PDF

This guide may also be useful for those performing detailed accessibility testing on:

  • PDF documents claiming conformance with PDF/UA, or
  • PDF documents claiming to be accessible according to some other specification.

Keep in mind that as of today most PDF documents do not follow these recommendations.

Comments are welcome! Please email pdfua@pdfa.org with your suggestions.

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Originally published by the PDF Association in 2019 and updated July 26, 2023 with corrections to the documents tags to meet current best-practices.

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Community: PDF/UA TWG

Comments are welcome! Please email pdfua@pdfa.org with your suggestions.


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