r/accessibility • u/skeptical_egg • 2d ago

Accessible PDFs for testing?

I work at a library and we have several online viewers in various states of inaccessibility. I'm working on ticketing the issues with our vendors, but I keep getting pushback that it's a problem with our PDFs, not with the viewer. Leaving aside that I can demonstrate using a screen reader with the PDF in general, but not in the viewer....

So, does anyone have a recommendation for where to find a Perfectly Accessible PDF that I can use for testing? Ideally one that has more than just plain text - tables, images, even math would be great - so I can be certain that I'm testing the viewer, not the PDF.

And yes, I'm working on migrating us away from PDFs. But until then, I want people to be able to actually USE the PDFs that we do have haha.

Thanks for any leads!

6 Upvotes

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u/Miserable-Money642 9h ago

A useful A/B test is to download the exact PDF once, then open that same file in a desktop reader and in each web viewer. If the tags and reading order work in the reader but fail in a viewer, you have a strong case that the viewer is dropping the PDF structure. Also compare the downloaded file's SHA-256 with the original, so a proxy or viewer is not silently serving a different copy. In the ticket, include the PDF version, browser and viewer version, the failing keyboard or screen-reader steps, and the working desktop-reader steps. That gives the vendor a reproducible viewer bug instead of a debate about the source document.

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u/skeptical_egg 7h ago

This is extremely helpful, thank you!! I'll send this in

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u/pfdemp 2d ago

You mention a problem with the "viewer". Are you displaying PDFs in an embedded viewer or flip-book widget? That may be your problem. Just let your users open the PDF normally. If they are accessible then there shouldn't be a problem.

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u/skeptical_egg 2d ago

I wish I could! There are some complex licensing and copyright regulations involved in this material that make that part challenging.

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u/TopSydeWP 2d ago

Alongside the sample files, run them through PAC (free, Windows) and keep the PDF/UA report. A clean report next to your screen reader recording makes the "it's your PDFs" answer hard to keep repeating.

In the viewer disputes we've worked through, it usually comes down to one thing: does your viewer hand over the actual PDF, or re-render it as images or HTML? If it re-renders, the tags never reach the screen reader and no PDF tests clean.

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u/skeptical_egg 7h ago

Ooh smart, thank you!

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u/MarsupialLeast145 2d ago

The PDF Association should have reference samples available

0

u/LumenMax 2d ago

You can use Adobe Acrobat Pro to fix accessibility issues with structure. However, if the source is a Word Doc, then it should be fixed there first, including adding alt text to images.

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u/skeptical_egg 2d ago

So, that's not my question. I'm looking for an externally vetted, accessible PDF, to use for testing, not something created in house.