How to Fix PDFs and Documents

A PDF carries no structure by default. These are the techniques that give it some.

Most owners fix the website, feel finished, and forget the documents hanging off it. But a price list, a menu, a benefits summary and an annual report are all things you published, and the law does not care what format they are in. Neither does the standard. WCAG's own definition of a web page reaches a PDF served at a URL, so it applies to your documents directly rather than by analogy. There is no editorial judgment in what sits below either. W3C publishes 23 PDF techniques and all 23 are here. They cover the whole tagging job. That means structure tags, reading order, alt text on figures, table headers and form field names, plus bookmarks, document language, document title and the running headers on a long report.

All 23 techniques

They run in technique order, and each one carries a tag. Sufficient techniques satisfy a rule. Advisory ones help without being required. Failures document a specific way of getting it wrong. None of them is mandatory, because W3C publishes techniques as documented ways of meeting a criterion rather than the only ways, so your own approach conforms as long as it meets the criterion.

The other 13 subjects

Knowing the technique is not the same as knowing you need it.

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How to Fix PDFs and Documents

All 23 techniques

More on PDF and documents

The other 13 subjects

Knowing the technique is not the same as knowing you need it.

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