If you post a PDF to the ASU web intended for students, employees or the public (including websites, online courses, social media, etc.), it must be accessible to people with disabilities.
How to ensure a PDF is accessible
Step 1: What type of PDF or original source document are you working with?
The ASU Library usually can supply an accessible, copyrighted PDF or electronic version of published material (e.g., a book chapter or journal article).
How to request an accessible PDF from ASU Libraries:
In Canvas: To embed an accessible PDF from a published source in a Canvas course, add the item to your ASU Library Resource Organizer in Canvas.
In both cases, the ASU Library will try to license the content. Depending on the copyright, they'll provide a deep link to an electronic or PDF version of the item that you can use on any page, assignment, quiz, discussion post, etc.
The sooner you submit a request the better. Requests are fulfilled on a first-come first-serve basis.
E-books may have a 3-user limit imposed by the publisher. Please contact the ASU Library in advance if this limit is a concern and would impact the assignment of the book or if your course has over 200 students.
Requests for scans above the standard exception noted on the Library's copyright page must be accompanied by a Fair Use checklist.
For more information on how the ASU Library can help you provide accessible documents for your students and staff, see Course Resource Services.
If the ASU Library is not able to assist you, see some alternatives.
Step 2b: Created document
If you're working with a PDF from a document you or someone else created in Word, PowerPoint or other software, answer the questions below.
Please note: You must have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro or Pro DC (not Acrobat Reader). Request Adobe Acrobat Pro. If you do not have access to Adobe Acrobat, see some alternatives.
If you cannot make a PDF accessible
If none of the above steps worked and you have the resources, consider hiring a PDF repair service to make the PDF accessible for you. Alternatively, as a last resort, you can reproduce the content in a second text-based version and publish it alongside the inaccessible PDF.
Paid PDF repair services. Good PDF repair firms include CommonLook, Equidox and SensusAccess. Typically, remediation of regular PDFs ranges from around $8-$15 per page depending on their complexity. PDF forms and scanned pages can be as much as $50 to $100 or more per page, depending on the quality and complexity.
Publish a second text-based version of the PDF. If you can't fix a PDF, recreate the content and publish an accessible MS Word, PowerPoint, HTML, or plain-text file as an alternative alongside the PDF file. Use this solution only as a last resort and as infrequently as possible. Posting alternative versions of content can cause problems (e.g., the content in the two documents may become out of sync). In addition, separate but equal is not really equitable and should be avoided in all but the direst situations.
Free training on creating accessible PDFs
Career EDGE courses
ASU Career EDGE offers two LinkedIn courses on making PDFs accessible that we highly recommend. Both are free to ASU affiliates. These are especially ideal for anyone who regularly works with PDFs:
Portable document format (PDF) is one of the most common file formats for documents on the web but also one of the most difficult for screen reader users to access. Consider using a more accessible format, such as MS Word or PowerPoint.
If you're using PDFs to protect your document, note that:
PDFs are not especially secure and are easily exported to MS Word format from Adobe Acrobat.
Portable document format (PDF) is one of the most common file formats for documents on the web but also one of the most difficult for screen reader users to access. Consider using a more accessible format, such as MS Word or PowerPoint.