The Swedish public sector alone publishes every year millions of PDF documents.
Digital PDF documents occupy a large proportion of the amount of information
on the authorities' websites for public digital service.
On September 23, 2020, all websites in the public sector across the EU
shall comply with the Web Accessibility Directive.
The directive also covers PDF documents published on these websites;
documents and presentation slides that must be published as accessible PDF.
For a PDF to be considered digitally accessible it shall be compliant with:
Authorities, and other entities that cooperate with the public sector,
and who do not yet publish their digital PDF documents as accessible PDF
shall immediately start the necessary accessibility work.
How far a business has come in its accessibility work
is easy to find out with this simple rule of thumb:
- If the business' perhaps most important document,
the own annual report(!) is designed, distributed and
published as digitally inaccessible PDF, it is a clear indication
that all of the business's other PDF documents are as well
published as inaccessible PDF.
- As a first immediate action, we recommend that at least
the own annual report is immediately created, distributed and
published in the form of digitally accessible PDF.
(Note: All information in an authority's annual report
shall have been quality assured at several levels,
from head of department to director general.
Before it is submitted,
it is signed by the entire board of the authority,
who on honor and conscience “certifies tha
the annual report provides a fair picture of
the authority's results".
Because the annual report is also published on
the authority's website and on the website of
the responsible ministry,
it shall also according to Swedish law,
"Act on accessibility to digital public services",
be published in a format so that it is accessible to all.
If not, the director general of the authority and
the board shall be held responsible.)
Tip: If you want to get an insight into what you should consider before
creating digitally accessible documents, and a good understanding of
what can go wrong, including common errors to learn from,
please contact us.
We can show you numerous typical examples of completely inaccessible
digital PDF documents/presentation slides that today are published
on governmental websites (national, regional and municipal).
Documents that unfortunately are not accessible for everyone,
completely contrary to applicable law, and how these documents
can be remedied / made digitally accessible:
If your business needs help with going from words to action,
getting started creating accessible PDF, we can help:
