These forums are now Read Only. If you have an Acrobat question, ask questions and get help from one of our experts.

PDF Accessibility Checker

Forum Index > Accessibility > PDF Accessibility Checker
2010-06-16 10:23:56
redcrew
Registered: Nov 7 2006
Posts: 83

Hi,

Does anyone have experience using the PDF Accessiblity Checker, http://www.access-for-all.ch/en/pdf-lab/pac-pdf-accessibility-checker.php, from the Access for All Foundation?

I discovered it yesterday on Twitter; it looks like a great first step toward checking PDF accessibility. It offers the following tests:

1. Document is marked as tagged
2. Document Title available
3. Document Language defined
4. Accessible Security Settings
5. Tab follows Tag-Structure
6. Consistent Heading Structure
7. Bookmarks available
8. Accessible Font Encodings
9. Content completely tagged
10. Logical Reading Order
11. Alternative Text available
12. Correct Syntax of Tags / Rolls
13. Sufficient contrast for Text
14. Spaces existent

and optionally provides ability to preview the structure of the PDF in a web browser. Of course, a person would still need to review the PDF. But it does provide a quick summary with warnings.

Did I mention it's free?

Top
2010-06-16 11:31:00
#1
radzmar
Expert
Registered: Nov 3 2008
Posts: 1202
Looks simple and maybe useful for a basic check, but I don't see which standardized guideline it uses to check the pdf.
But hey, it's freeware...

By the way:
The forthcoming Acrobat 10 has a very efficiency accessibility checker complying with Section 508 and/or W3C guidelines and gives very detailed feedback about found problems and how to solve them in Acrobat.
Well, it's not for free ;-)

radzmar
• LoveCycle Blog
Documents you need:
• LiveCycle Designer ES2 Docs

Top
2010-06-16 23:23:45
#2
riesch
Registered: Jun 16 2010
Posts: 1
The test criterias of PDF Accessibility Checker PAC (http://www.access-for-all.ch/en/pdf-lab/pac-pdf-accessibility-checker.php) refering to WCAG 2.0 (Reference: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.xymedia.ch/downloads/PAC_Quickmanual.pdf).

PAC offers you the aded possibility of displaying a preview of the structured PDF document in a web browser. This preview shows which tags are included in the PDF document and presents the accessible elements in the same way as they would be interpreted by assistive technologies (such as screen readers).

This unique HTML-preview contains all semantic information. It's helpful to have a detailed overview of the accessibility from PDF-documents and forms.
Top
2010-06-17 03:40:15
#3
redcrew
Registered: Nov 7 2006
Posts: 83
@riesch Thx for the follow up. I have found the results to be very good in pointing out issues in a PDF.

@radzmar I keep waiting for the Acrobat 10 release, but the only response I get from Adobe is "we have no date for release". It's very frustrating. While I realize they don't want to set a date, for all I know, version 10 could be released next week. Or next year.

While it will be lovely to use the accessibility checker when version 10 comes out, at this time, it seems that the PDF Accessibility Checker will do a much better job than the built in checking in Acrobat.
Top