If your document has failed the "Image-Only PDF" check in the Accessibility Checker, the best place to start with remediation is the Make Accessible action in the Action Wizard tool. This action will work through some of the foundational pieces of PDF accessibility, such as running Optical Character Recognition, tagging the document, and setting alternative text. 

To run the Make Accessible action, utilize the following instructions:

1. 1. Open the Action Wizard tool
   2. Select the Make Accessible action
   3. Select the Start button and complete the following steps
      • Enter the document title
      • Select the Yes, Recognize Text button
        • Select the appropriate settings (output should be Searchable Image)
      • Select the Yes, Detect Form Fields button if your document is intended to be fillable
      • Select the reading language
      • Enter alt text for any images (this can be completed later if needed)
      • Select the Start Checking button in the Accessibility Checker Options

Tagging a PDF document is one of the foundational components of an accessible PDF document. Adobe has an autotag feature, which is a process where Adobe will attempt to assign tags to the content within the document. Although this is a great place to start, tags need to be manually checked and remediated for accuracy. 

To run the Autotag Document feature, utilize the following instructions: 

1. Open the Accessibility tool
2. Select the Autotag Document button
3. Use the box to write alt text for the image
4. Use the arrow keys to navigate to the next image
5. Once you have added alt text to each image, select the Save & Close button

Alternative text for images is one of the foundational components of an accessible PDF document. Adobe has a feature that will allow you to add alternative text for all images, which is a process where Adobe will recognize all images in the document and allow you to add alternative text at one time. 

To run the Set Alternative Text feature, utilize the following instructions: 

1. Open the Accessibility tool
2. Select the Set Alternative Text  button

One of the foundational parts of making a PDF accessibility is tagging, which refers to the process of assigning a tag to all content on the page. Tagging content tells Adobe what each piece of content is. These tags are used by a variety of technology to help users understand the content. As an example, a heading tag will be used by a screen reader to tell the user that the content is a heading and what level of heading. 

Types of Tags 

There are a number of tags that exist inside of Adobe. The most fundamental and commonly used tags can be found in the Reading Order option under the Accessibility tool. The tags in this area include: 

• Text/Paragraph
• Form Field
• Heading levels
• Figure
• Table
• Background/Artifact

There are a number of additional tags that can only be found inside the Tag Tree, which can be accessed via the Tags Navigation Pane button. Please note that to use these additional tags, the content should already be tagged with one of the foundational tags. As an example, when creating a list tag, all list items should first be tagged with a Text/Paragraph tag. 

Some of the important tags in the Tag Tree include: 

• Index
• List (Item and Body)
• Note
• Reference 
• Section 
• Table (Data Cell, Header Cell, and Row)

How to Tag Content

To tag content with the foundational tags: 

1. Open the Accessibility tool
2. Select the Reading Order button 
3. Using the crosshairs cursor, draw a box around the form field
4. Select appropriate tag in the Reading Order box

To tag content with the additional tags found in the Tags Navigation Pane:

1. Open the Tag Navigation Pane button (left-hand side)
2. Right click on an existing tag
3. Select the New Tag button
4. In the Type box, select the appropriate tag (you are not required to enter information in the Title box)
5. Select the OK button
6. Drag and drop the foundational tag underneath the tag you just created

All images must have alternative text or be marked as decorative images. 

How to Remediate Alternative Text 

If you do not want to add alt text via the Set Alternative Text feature, you can create alt text for each image individually. 

To remediate alt text for each image individually: 

1. Open the Accessibility tool
2. Select the Reading Order button 
3. Right click on the Figure tag for the image
4. Select the Alternative Text button
5. Add the alt text in the box
6. Select the Save & Close button

Form fields have two distinct pieces that need to be completed to be deemed accessible:

• Each form field must have a field description (including a tool tip)
• Each form field must be appropriately tagged

How to Remediate Form Fields

To add a field description: 

1. Open the Prepare Form tool 
2. Right click on the form field
3. Select the Properties button
4. Enter information in both the Name and Tooltip boxes (it is acceptable to repeat the information from the Name box in the Tooltip box if there is not additional information to convey to the user. 

To tag a form field: 

1. Open the Accessibility tool
2. Select the Reading Order button 
3. Using the crosshairs cursor, draw a box around the form field
4. Select Form Field in the Reading Order box

The final piece of making a PDF accessible is to set the reading order, which refers to the order in which the content on the page is read aloud to a user. It's important that the reading order is set appropriately, otherwise the content may be read in a random order. The reading order of a page can vary depending upon the content, but should generally follow the following pattern: 

• Heading level 1
• Written content (including additional heading levels)
• Images 
• Annotations
• Footer content

This is the final piece of making a PDF accessible because if content is modified after initially setting the reading order, it will need to be further modified. To avoid having to complete this process twice, setting the reading order should be one of the last pieces of remediating a PDF. 

How to Remediate Reading Order

1. Open the Order Navigation Pane button (left-hand side)
2. Open the Accessibility tool
3. Select the Reading Order button 
4. In the Reading Order box under Show Page Content Groups, select the Page Content Order radio button
5. In the Order Navigation Pane, drag and drop tagged content to remediate the reading order