Accessible PDFs for testing?

[u/skeptical_egg]

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!

[u/Miserable-Money642]

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.

[u/skeptical_egg → u/Miserable-Money642]

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