Accessible PDFs

PDFs were originally created to enable the fomatting of documents to remain the same, regardless of what device they're on, and how the device is set up.

PDFs are not an accessible option for sharing information for a general audience. PDF documents can be difficult to read, interact with and navigate for people using assistive technologies or viewing the PDF on a small screen.  

The New Zealand Government's Web Accessibility Guide includes Understand how to create and test for an accessible PDF.

If using Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can create and verify PDF accessiblity (Adobe Support).

WebAIM (Web Accessiblity In Mind) has a guide for converting Word documents to PDFs as well as how to review and repair accessibility in Acrobat.

Te Tari Taiwhenua, Department of Internal Affairs gives the steps for creating InDesign documents to export as accessible PDFs.

Adobe also provides a workflow for creating accessible PDFs from an InDesign document.