CommonLook
PDF Accessibility: Problem Solved

Solutions for Compliance with Accessibility Standards:
ISO 14289-1 (PDF/UA),
W3C/WCAG 2.0/2.1,
U.S. Section 508 and U.S. HHS

Before opening the document in CommonLook PDF:

Open it in Adobe Acrobat and do the following:

• Run OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the file
  if there is any scanned content


• Add Form Fields and/or Links if applicable


• Add JavaScript if needed


• Embed fonts if needed
  (Note: This is required if you are remediating to the ISO Standard PDF/UA)


• You can now use the Adobe Acrobat tool to add Tags to the document.
  Check for corruption in the physical view before you proceed.


• Remember to use the “save as” function to
  preserve the edits you made to the PDF.

Optional, yet recommended next steps:

• Print the Table of Contents and mark Heading Levels


• Review the document and identify tables that contain empty cells.
  If there are any empty cells, do not perform a full clean up
  because it removes them.


• Does the document have images that convey relevant information?
  If not, you can use CommonLook to artifact images if they are
  decorative such as lines, boxes and watermarks.
  Artifact these images in the tag tree so they are ignored by a screen reader.

Remediation Checklist for CommonLook PDF

• In the Ribbon on the Settings tab:


• Reset the Panels Location if needed


• Choose selection settings as appropriate
  (Exact, Tagged/Untagged, etc)


• Open the Tag Tree


• Artifact images as needed
  (images that do not convey relevant information)


• Remediate the document
  (best practice is to save periodically)


• Verify the reading order


• Check that the correct tag is being used


• Look for color issues


• Fix Tables, Forms, Links, artifact headers/footers, etc. as necessary


• Set the Tabbing Order to follow the document structure


• Add the Document Tag


• Add Bookmarks


• Clean up empty Tags


• Metadata information;
  Check the checkbox (in Metadata) as applicable for
  W3C/WCAG 2.0/2.1 AA, ISO PDF/UA, U.S. Section 508, and/or U.S. HHS


• Run CommonLook Verification on both structural and accessibility as needed


• Generate and save your CommonLook Accessibility Report


• Save your work!

As you can see, ensuring documents are accessible and meet
the accessibility standards is a thorough and methodical process.
CommonLook Training delivers hands-on training on best practices
to get the most out of your investment in CommonLook tools like
CommonLook PDF and CommonLook Office.

CommonLook Client Success Portal contains valuable information to use
in the remediation process and to ensure your documents fully meet
the accessibility standards and work well with screen readers.