Other than Acrobat Pro, does anyone have any recommendations for software that will allow someone to add the ADA required alternate text and tags to a PDF document?
Background: I need to create PDF documents that are ADA Compliant. I am not using Word (the documents are generated by LaTeX and perhaps eventually also by Curio).
I found this link to a resource called PAVE that is now rather dated. It will check compliance but does not seem to allow one to edit documents in order to add the required information.
I’m not 100% sure but I think that PDFpen or PDFpenPro used to have this feature. However, I haven’t really kept up with it because it’s not something that I’ve needed to work with.
The one reservation is that, while apps propose to be able to add meta-data to PDFs, I think that only Acrobat Pro to my knowledge also allows one to edit the alternate text and tags to internal links.
PDFExpert lacks any ability to edit links. It also gets some of the meta-data wrong compared to Acrobat Reader (and I’ll be filing a bug report to Readdle when I have the time).
Honestly, before I would invest the time to go through any route that uses multiple apps, I’d just purchase Acrobat Pro and be done with it.
As far as LaTeX specifically, some folks are working on pdf tagging packages that will work within the LaTeX engine itself. But, as I have learned, this is a huge undertaking for LaTeX that would almost be better served with a re-write of the LaTeX kernel itself. As somewhere someone said, LaTeX is far behind in the PDF world view.
I believe the absolute best option is to use Acrobat Pro. I know of no other options that are reliable to the standards that Adobe requires.
When you would use LaTeX, it supposedly has a package or two that will allow you to munge-about to manage the XMP tagging that you need. I didn’t have the appropriate level or super-powers to decode them readily.
This doesn’t actually help answer this specific question/thread, but figured I would post here since this post is what I found when looking up how to covert to PDF/A (needed to do it for uploads to NSF). Hopefully sometime in the future someone gets some help (and that person might be me this time next year).
Good to know. I’ll pass this information forward to our technology teams at our university. The topmost link also has a wealth of links to convert to/from various formats. This is a good resource for students in COVID/REMOTE courses.
FWIW< I did a quick test with a document that had an underlying PDF issue (a bug in an old LaTeXiT equation). The file converted to a PDF/A format. But the formatting issue did not go away.
In short then … First make sure that Adobe Reader DC reports no errors with your PDF. Then convert it to PDF/A.
I feel like Stephen with searching how to do something and coming across my old post as the solution. I’ll probably be back here again next year for the same search for the same annual report. Also, I realize that I didn’t procrastinate quite as much last year for a report due in April.
I have since discovered how to create PDF/A in LaTeX. Use either hyperxmp or (perhaps better) pdfx (shout out to @JohnAtl in case you are listening for PDF/A compliance for your ARCHIVAL LaTeX documents). Also as far as I can determine, PDF/A is a metric to certify the document is fully self-contained (e.g archival). It is not a metric on whether the document has any ADA compliant tags. I have also since decided that tackling an ADA issue should best remain recognized as being well beyond my pay grade, time, and return on investment.
I have learned that faculty in US in higher ed (and possibly also in K-12) face a mandate that all content posted for students must be ADA compliant to a defined standard by Spring 2026. I look for my university to provide me with resources to convert my documents to the requisite PDF/… standard. I fear at best that I will still need to do manual work and at worst that I may have to do everything manually. I am preparing myself now for what might come.
I have determined LaTeX is providing methods to become compliant. Reading a Guide to PDFKit for JavaScript tells me that options can be provided to meet this demand. See the section on Marked Content. Sad that PDFKit for macOS lacks such options.
In the meantime, is anyone aware as to whether Apple will update their apps and frameworks to allow easier automation toward PDF/… ADA compliance?
If it’s at all helpful: for articles available in any of our subscribed databases, my college really recommends linking to the article rather than posting it. That avoids the PDF problem.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t get around the problem of existing PDFs that aren’t already compliant. Those can be a real pain.
I’ve found that it’s easiest for me if I have (or can easily create from a Google Doc) an existing Word document. I’m not always a Microsoft fan, but their accessibility checkers are very good, and the recommendations for fixing any issues are clear and easy to follow.
Alternatively said … Your college recommends dumping the compliance problem in someone else’s lap whenever possible. A reasonably good strategy if I might say so.
Or the problem of PDF documents created by tools that do not provide ways to set or check compliance.
I believe our institution is going to try to wash its hands of pre-existing documents until we at least get the future plans well organized.
Good to hear. I avoid Word and Pages in favor of LaTeX. But I also now have a reasonable grasp on what to do in LaTeX to become ADA compliant going forward.
I wasn’t going to put it quite that way, but yes. And I actually like the strategy not only because it shifts the compliance problem away from us, but also because I think the providers really do have an obligation to provide materials in accessible format. (Last year, for my own use, I downloaded an ebook from one of our vendors. It wasn’t available in a reflowable ePub. They only provided a PDF — and the PDF was a blasted image file that I couldn’t even select text in. Grr.)
And I actually like the strategy not only because it shifts the compliance problem away from us, but also because I think the providers really do have an obligation to provide materials in accessible format. (Last year, for my own use, I downloaded an ebook from one of our vendors. It wasn’t available in a reflowable ePub. They only provided a PDF — and the PDF was a blasted image file that I couldn’t even select text in. Grr.)