Accessibility checker

The Accessibility Checker, supplied in Power PDF Advanced, helps ensure your PDF can be handled by as wide a range of people as possible. Primarily it is measuring the quality of output from screen reading programs. This checker verifies that your PDF documents conform to accessibility standards such as PDF/UA and WCAG 2.1 AA. Some flagged issues can be resolved automatically, others need manual intervention.

To set up and run a check

Open the Compliance panel.

Open the Options drop-down list and select Accessibility.

Click the Start Check tool. The Accessibility Checker Options dialog box offers over 30 items that can be checked, arranged in four categories. Select the items you want checked. Keep the option 'Show these options when the Checker is started' to review the settings before each check, or deselect it to apply your choices to future checking. Click OK.

The check runs and a list of all checked items is displayed with the following outcomes:

Passed

Warning: The item has not failed, but something deserves attention.

Information: This may mean the test was not requested so it was skipped.

Fail: You need to fix this issue automatically or manually to ensure accessibility.

To address issues

Some failed items can be solved automatically.

Click the Fix tool in the panel toolbar to let the program try to resolve the issue. Other failed items can only be solved manually.

Click the Attach Report icon to attach the report to the PDF as an .html file attachment.

Fixing accessibility issues

Consult the following four Help topics for advice on each item; Help is arranged by the same four categories presented in the dialog box:

Accessibility results - Document

Accessibility results - Page Content

Accessibility results - Forms, Tables and Lists

Accessibility results - Alternate Text and Headings

Other compliance checks exist for validating compliance with PDF/A standards. Although they have some relevance to Accessibility, they are designed primarily for archival purposes, to produce future-proof PDF files that will be readable for many decades to come.