PDF Accessibility Checker

PDFs are everywhere on the web — financial reports, menus, legal documents, forms, brochures, and academic papers. They are also one of the most frequently inaccessible document types. When a blind user encounters a scanned PDF without text recognition, a tagged PDF with improper reading order, or a form PDF with unlabeled fields, the document is completely unusable.

PDF accessibility is a major factor in ADA lawsuits. Government agencies, educational institutions, restaurants, and financial services companies have all been sued specifically for inaccessible PDFs. The April 24, 2026 ADA Title II deadline explicitly covers digital documents, including PDFs posted on government websites. The European Accessibility Act extends these requirements across the EU.

Common inaccessible PDF patterns include scanned images without OCR, missing document structure tags, improper reading order, unlabeled form fields, and missing alternative text on images within the PDF.

Accessible PDFs must meet the PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) standard and align with WCAG 2.1 for web-published documents:

• Tagged structure — every heading, paragraph, list, table, and image must be tagged with the correct PDF structure element
• Reading order — the tag tree must reflect the logical reading order, not the visual layout order
• Alternative text — every non-decorative image, chart, and graphic needs alt text within the PDF tag
• Form field labels — interactive form fields must have programmatically associated labels and tooltips
• Document language — the PDF must specify its language for correct screen reader pronunciation
• Bookmarks — documents longer than 20 pages should include bookmarks for navigation

Many organizations create PDFs by "printing to PDF" from Word or InDesign, which often strips the accessibility structure. Export to PDF (not Print to PDF) preserves tags and structure when the source document is properly formatted.

CompliScan currently focuses on web page accessibility scanning using axe-core, which tests the HTML pages where PDFs are linked. CompliScan helps with PDF accessibility in several important ways:

• Detecting PDF links — CompliScan identifies links to PDF files on your pages, flagging them for manual PDF accessibility review
• Web page context — ensuring the pages that host or link to PDFs are themselves accessible (proper link text, document descriptions)
• Alternative content — CompliScan's AI may suggest providing HTML alternatives alongside PDF downloads for maximum accessibility

For testing the PDFs themselves, use dedicated PDF accessibility tools:

• Adobe Acrobat Pro — includes a built-in accessibility checker and remediation tools
• PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker) — free, tests against PDF/UA standard
• CommonLook PDF — enterprise PDF remediation tool

The best practice is to minimize PDF usage on your website. Where possible, present content as HTML pages (which CompliScan can fully scan) rather than PDFs. When PDFs are necessary, ensure they meet PDF/UA standards.

Prevention is far easier than remediation. Follow these practices to create accessible PDFs from the start:

• Start with accessible source documents — use heading styles (not font size changes), alt text on images, and proper list formatting in Word, InDesign, or Google Docs
• Export, do not print — use File > Export/Save As PDF rather than Print > PDF; export preserves document tags and structure
• Check with Adobe Acrobat — run the built-in accessibility checker (Accessibility > Full Check) and fix all flagged issues
• Set the document language — in Acrobat: File > Properties > Advanced > Language
• Verify reading order — use Acrobat's Reading Order tool to ensure the tag tree matches the logical content order

For existing inaccessible PDFs, consider converting content to HTML pages on your website. CompliScan can then scan those pages and provide AI-powered fix suggestions. This approach eliminates the need for PDF remediation while improving SEO (search engines index HTML better than PDFs) and accessibility simultaneously.