How to make PDFs accessible

You must make sure that the text in your PDF is easy for people to read and understand.

How to check your written content is accessible

Plain English

Check your PDF is written in plain English. Plain English uses simple wording and does not contain jargon.

Plain English benefits everyone. This includes:

• People with low literacy skills. 16.4% of adults in England, or 7.1 million people, have 'very poor literacy skills' (Source - National Literacy Trust)
• Specialists and people with mid to high literacy skills. Government Digital Service (GDS) advice on writing content says 'research shows that higher literacy people prefer plain English because it allows them to understand the information as quickly as possible'

Technical terms and abbreviations

Check that any technical terms and abbreviations in your PDF are explained the first time they're used.

For example, the first time an abbreviation like 'NCC' is used in your PDF, it should say 'Norfolk County Council (NCC)'.

Instructions

Your document might contain instructions that users need to follow.

Check that any instructions in your PDF do not rely on the user being able to see the page. This includes referring to things only by colour, size, position or shape.

Instructions that rely on people being able to see your document to understand them make it hard or impossible for people with visual impairments to follow them.

For example:

• Don't write: 'Use the red text in the square box to help you complete the form'
• Do write: 'Follow our advice on how to complete the form'

How to make written content accessible

If you find that any written content in your PDF isn't accessible, you must fix it.

There are lots of resources to help you rewrite your PDF:

• GDS guide on how to write well for your audience
• The Writer's free readability checker (opens new window) (opens in a new window) - a readability checker that will assess the reading age someone needs to be to understand your writing
• Nielsen Norman Group article on why plain language is for everyone, even experts

Edit the source document

Most PDFs on our websites were created in Word originally.

The easiest way to make the written content in your PDF accessible is to edit the source document (eg Word), and then reconvert it to a PDF.

Edit the PDF

You need Adobe Acrobat Pro to edit your PDF. You should only edit the PDF if you can't edit the source document. This is because:

• It's usually easier to edit the source document than the PDF
• Your PDF may have other accessibility issues that you can only fix in the source document
• If you edit the PDF but then update your source document in the future, you will need to redo all the edits you made to the original PDF

Follow Adobe's guide on editing text and images in PDF files.