There are a number of tools and panes that need to be enabled before you can begin the process of making a PDF accessible. These tools and panes will act as shortcuts to open different menus. Tools can be found on the right-hand side of Adobe Acrobat and are shown through colored icons. Additionally, tools can be enabled through the “Tools” area at the top of Acrobat to the right of the Home button.
The Edit PDF tool will allow you to make edits to the content within the document. You should use this tool to edit text, images, headers, footers, and watermarks.
The Accessibility tool will allow you to access the accessibility features in Acrobat. You will utilize this menu to access the accessibility check and report, as well as reading order. Additionally, you can use this menu to autotag a document, automatically identify form fields, and set alternative text for all images in the document.
The Action Wizard tool will allow you to run multiple automated processes, including processes to make a document accessible. In this menu, you will find two processes that may be helpful in making a document accessible:
Optimize Scanned Documents
Make Accessible
The Optimize Scanned Documents process will convert the contents of a document into searchable text by completing a process called optical character recognition.
The Make Accessible process will move through multiple steps to make a document more accessible, including setting a document title, converting to searchable text, detecting any form fields, setting tab order, setting reading language, autotagging content, and setting alternative text for images. This process will end with an accessibility check.
The Prepare Form tool will allow you to make changes to any form fields in the document, including adding names and tooltips to all form fields.
Panes
The panes can be found in a navigation pane on the left-hand side of Acrobat and are shown through gray icons. To add navigation pane icons to the navigation pane, right click in the white space below the current icons and select the panes you would like to be shown as icons. Alternatively, you can select the view tab at the top of Adobe, select show/hide, select navigation panes, and then select the panes you would like to be shown as icons.
The Order button will allow you to make modifications to the reading order for each page.
The Tags button will allow you to make modifications to the tags for all content within the document.
The Accessibility Checker button will allow you to view the results of an accessibility check. This button can only be enabled after running an accessibility check.