Originally published at AccessibleWeb Guide.
If your business publishes PDFs -- menus, brochures, invoices, annual reports, product catalogs -- there is a good chance they are inaccessible to people with disabilities. And yes, PDF accessibility falls under the same laws (ADA, EAA, Section 508) that apply to your website.
The problem is widespread. A 2025 study by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals found that over 90% of business PDFs failed basic accessibility checks. That includes PDFs from companies that had already invested in making their websites accessible.
This guide will walk you through what makes a PDF accessible, how to check your existing PDFs, and how to fix or recreate them -- all without needing developer skills or expensive software.
Why PDF Accessibility Matters
Legal Requirements
Under the ADA, any document you make available to the public must be accessible to people with disabilities. The European Accessibility Act (EAA), which takes full effect in June 2025, explicitly includes digital documents. If your business serves customers in the EU or the United States, your PDFs need to be accessible.
Courts have been increasingly clear on this point. In 2024, several businesses faced lawsuits specifically over inaccessible PDF documents on their websites -- not the websites themselves, but the PDFs hosted on them.
Who Is Affected
When we talk about accessible PDFs, we are primarily talking about people who use screen readers -- software that reads digital content aloud. Screen readers are used by people who are blind or have low vision, but also by people with dyslexia, cognitive disabilities, or even temporary situations like a broken arm.
An inaccessible PDF is essentially invisible to a screen reader. The software either cannot read it at all, or reads it in a jumbled, meaningless order. Imagine trying to understand a restaurant menu where all the items and prices are read out in random order. That is the experience an inaccessible PDF creates.
Business Benefits
Beyond legal compliance, accessible PDFs benefit your business:
- Better SEO: Search engines can index accessible PDFs more effectively, meaning your content appears in more search results.
- Wider audience: Approximately 15% of the global population has some form of disability. Accessible documents reach more people.
- Professional image: Accessible documents signal that your business takes inclusivity seriously.
- Future-proofing: Accessibility regulations are expanding, not shrinking. Getting ahead now saves costly retrofitting later.
The Most Common PDF Accessibility Problems
Before we get into solutions, here are the issues you are most likely dealing with:
1. Scanned PDFs (Image-Only PDFs)
This is the biggest offender. When you scan a paper document, the result is essentially a photograph. There is no actual text in the file -- just a picture of text. A screen reader sees nothing.
How to check: Open the PDF and try to select text with your cursor. If you cannot highlight individual words, it is likely an image-only PDF.
2. Missing Document Structure
Even if your PDF contains real text, it might lack the tags that tell a screen reader what is a heading, what is a paragraph, what is a list, and what order to read them in. Without this structure, the screen reader just streams all the text as one continuous block.
3. Missing Alternative Text for Images
Just like on websites, images in PDFs need alternative text (alt text) that describes what the image shows. Decorative images should be marked as such so screen readers skip them.
4. Poor Reading Order
PDFs with multiple columns, sidebars, or complex layouts often have a reading order that makes no sense to a screen reader. The software might jump from a heading to a sidebar callout to the middle of a paragraph.
5. Inaccessible Tables
Tables in PDFs are notoriously problematic. Without proper header tags, a screen reader user has no way to understand which data belongs to which column or row.
6. Missing Document Title and Language
Every PDF should have a document title (not just a filename) and a specified language. These help screen readers announce the document correctly.
How to Check Your PDFs for Accessibility
You do not need expensive tools to run a basic check. Here are free options:
Adobe Acrobat Reader (Free)
If you have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can do a basic manual check:
- Open the PDF
- Try selecting text -- if you cannot, it is an image-only PDF
- Go to File and then Properties to check if a document title and language are set
- Try using Tab to navigate through any form fields
PAC 2024 (Free, Windows)
PDF Accessi
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