Accessible Document Remediation Services Including PDF Remediation Services

Microassist’s Portable Document Format (PDF) and document remediation team help increase the accessibility of your PDF documents and achieve compliance with Section 508, WCAG 2.0, or PDF/UA document and accessibility requirements and standards.

Adobe PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations,  and audio and video files can be unperceivable by individuals with disabilities because accessibility wasn’t considered when the content was created.

It’s not just online documents, either. Files emailed or otherwise sent digitally to the general public are also at risk of being discriminatory if not properly prepared.

This can be critical for organizations in sectors that produce legal, financial, or digital information or health and safety documents.

Need to talk about making your documents Section 508- or WCAG-compliant ASAP? Contact us. We’d be glad to discuss your file formats, requirements, deadlines, and how we can help.

Why Choose Microassist to Remediate

Microassist’s pdf remediation experts can help you fix inaccessible documents.

Our team will help you scope the size and timeline of your document remediation project.   PDF remediation projects are typically priced by page and complexity.  Determining the number of PDFs and pages that need remediated and their complexity is not always easy.  Our pdf remediation services team will work with you to scope the size and timeline of the engagement.

Our team uses a combination of manual and automated methods to remediate your PDFs economically but correctly.  Automated tagging tools can give you a headstart on more accessible PDFs for remediation.  However, manual effort is required to make a document fully accessible and compliant.   Our remediation team adds appropriate alt-tags to images, works with your graphic design team to ensure that images meet color-contrast requirements, ensures that the reading order conveys the author’s intent, and tests forms to make sure that they work.

What is PDF Accessibility Remediation

PDF Remediation is the process of modifying a PDF document to make it more accessible for individuals with disabilities. This is accomplished by adding, modifying, or improving various elements of the PDF, such as:

Tagging: This involves adding tags to the PDF, which helps screen readers and other assistive technologies understand the structure and order of the information contained in the document.

Alt Text: Images, graphs, and other non-text elements in the PDF should have alternate text descriptions so that visually impaired users can understand the content of these digital elements.

Reading Order: The reading order of the PDF content of accessible documents is optimized so that it makes sense when read aloud by assistive technologies.

Form Fields: If the PDF contains form fields, they should be made accessible by ensuring they are correctly labeled and tabbing order is logical.

Links and Bookmarks: Links should be correctly tagged and descriptive, and bookmarks should be used to make longer PDF documents easier to navigate.

Color and Contrast: The color contrast of the PDF should be sufficient for visually impaired users, and important information should never be conveyed by color alone.

By remediating a PDF, the document becomes more accessible to a wide range of individuals, including those using assistive technology like screen readers, screen magnification software, and speech recognition software. It also helps organizations comply with legal requirements and accessibility standards, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Why is PDF Accessibility Important

Non-accessible documents hosted on digital mediums may expose organizations to accessibility-related lawsuits. This risk is especially high in government, healthcare, financial institutions, and education sectors. Thus, PDF accessibility is crucial not only for inclusive user experience but also for legal compliance.

PDF Document Remediation Service

Microassist can work with your team to establish best practices to address and maintain accessibility from creation to publishing. We can enable your team to upload accessible documents and materials to your website.  In each case, we abide by recognized accessibility standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and PDF/UA:

• We can remediate a backlog of existing PDFs that need accessibility remediation.
• We can take your final content and remediate PDFs before posting online.
• We can work with your content creators and designers to address accessibility through templates, styles, and accessibility best practices during the planning stages so that documents can be made accessible as they are being created.
• We can convert appropriate content to PDF files using recommended workflows, making content accessible in that format before posting the PDF file online.
• We can provide regular training for subject matter experts across the organization and help your organization establish policies and checklists that help you maintain an accessible online presence.

Building in document accessibility from the beginning as part of an organization’s standard operating procedure is significantly less burdensome than remediating hundreds of files at a later date. But in either case, we can partner with you to make sure your content is accessible to all.

Need to talk about making your documents accessible and compliant to Section 508- or WCAG-compliant ASAP? Contact us. We’d be glad to discuss your file formats, requirements, deadlines, and how we can help.