Instructors primarily use PDFs for their students' online course materials. Regardless of their reasons, there are many benefits to providing PDFs for your students instead of the original document. Adobe PDFs can be shared, viewed, and printed by anyone on any system using free Adobe Reader software. Regardless of your operating system or the original application used to build the document, anyone can access that PDF. (If it's accessible, that is.)
The key to accessibility in PDFs is "tags." Tags define the structure of the document, ensuring that text, images, and other elements can be extracted and presented in a meaningful way. While these tags don’t change the visual layout, they are essential for making content navigable and understandable for users with disabilities. Without tags, a PDF is not considered accessible. Fortunately, when you create a accessibility document in Microsoft Word and add a document title, converting it to an PDF will retain many of these accessibility features, making the transition seamless.
When creating PDFs, watch out for these common errors:
PDF Remediation Guide
Creating Accessible PDFs (Video Tutorial)
Add a Document Title
Convert a Word Document to an Accessible PDF
