Remediate PDFs in Adobe Acrobat Pro

PDF documents are a common fixture in both academic and professional settings, but they are often inaccessible scans of physical documents. These documents often contain artifacts from the original scan that can impede the readability of the document for all especially those using screen readers. The resources on this page consist of a video tutorial and text instructions outlining the process of using Adobe Acrobat DC to remediate PDFs.

MSU Denver faculty, staff, and students have access to Adobe products with your MSU Denver account.

• Faculty and staff who use Windows can use the MSU Denver Windows Software Center to install Adobe products.
• Faculty and staff who use Apple devices can use the MSU Denver Self Service app to install Adobe products.
• Students can visit the ITS website to request Adobe access.

Recognize text

1. Open a PDF document in Adobe Acrobat.
2. Perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on the document.
   1. When opening the document, Acrobat might display a pop-up bar at the top of the document stating “A scanned document has been identified, Scan & OCR tool can turn scans or images into editable PDFs.” Select the Get Started button.
   2. If the pop-up bar is not present, select All Tools on the top menu bar, then select Scan & OCR.
3. The Scan & OCR pane will open. Under Recognize Text, select In this file. Select the relevant pages and the document language, then select the Recognize text button.
4. The OCR process takes some time depending on clarity of scan and length of document.

Crop pages if needed

If the scans contain extraneous and distracting elements like black space or partial adjoining pages, the scan should be cropped to the relevant page. For tutorial with images, visit the Adobe help page on Crop pages in PDF.

1. Select All tools, then select Edit a PDF.
2. In Modify page, select the Crop page button (icon is a page with a crop square in the lower right).
3. Use the cursor to drag a rectangle around the page. Drag the corner handles to modify if needed.
4. Double-click inside the rectangle to open the Set Page Boxes window. If the black rectangle on the preview screen is correct, select OK.

Make corrections

1. Open the Scan & OCR pane again from All tools. Select Correct recognized text.
2. In the new pop-up, select the Review recognized text box. Acrobat will display the image and what it thinks the text should be. Review and make corrections as needed. If the element pictured is a decorative picture or an error, input the text as a space.

Create tags

1. Select All tools, then select Prepare for accessibility.
2. Select Automatically tag PDF. Acrobat will do its best to recognize headings, paragraphs, lists, and tables, however manual checking and correction of tags is basically always needed.
3. To view the tags, on the right-hand toolbar, right-click/alt-click and select Accessibility tags. If the Accessibility tags pane doesn’t open automatically, select the icon (looks like a hanging tag) on the right-hand toolbar.
4. To change a tag type, right-click/alt-click the tag in the pane, select Properties.
5. In the Object Properties window, in the Tag tab, use the Type drop-down menu to select the correct tag type. Select Close to close the Object Properties window.

File properties, reading order, and more

1. Create labels and titles to go with chapters and sections using the Reading Order in the Accessibility Tool.
   1. Ensure the Reading Order is accurate.
2. Add a title to the PDF and set it to display in Acrobat.
   1. Select File then select Properties.
   2. In the Description tab, type in a title for the PDF.
   3. In the Initial View tab in the Window Options section, the Show drop-down menu can be set to Document Title so that when the PDF is open in Acrobat, it displays the title instead of the file name.
3. Add Alt-text to URL links.
   1. If not already visible, open the Accessibility Tags pane.
   2. Locate the Link tag in the tag tree and then right-click/alt-click on the Link tag, then select Properties; this will open a new window.
   3. In the Tag tab, enter replacement text in the Alternate Text box. Screen readers will read this text instead of the URL.

Use the Acrobat Accessibility Checker

1. Select All tools, then select Prepare for accessibility, then select Check for accessibility.
2. Remember that this checker is no substitute for a thorough manual check, but it does check for alt-text for figures, file properties, and if headings are nested correctly without skipping levels.

Save as PDF/A.

1. Click on the File tab and hover over Save As
2. Select Archivable PDF/A
3. Select your destination.
4. Click Save.

Now, a screen reader such as the Adobe Reader Read function, Read and Write, and JAWS can access your file. Don’t forget to set or adjust the reading order.

There is actually a lot more to PDF Remediation to ensure everything is read and interpreted correctly such as making sure headings, paragraphs, and lists are properly identified using PDF Accessibility Tags.

Generally, remediating PDFs consists of at least the following areas:

• Setting the document properties (step 7 above)
• Tag the PDF (headings, lists, tables, images, artifacts, etc)
• Ensure all images or graphics have alt-text (or possibly Long Descriptions appended)
• Ensure the reading order is correct throughout the entire document
• For long documents, create bookmarks
• For documents with links, ensure link tags have all tag elements (including Link-OBJR) and navigate to the correct place
• Ensure tables with structure and tags are correct

For more information on identifying, or “tagging,” the text in a PDF correctly, some external resources are listed below:

• WebAIM: PDF Accessibility – Defining PDF Accessibility
  This starts off with defining what “PDF tags” are and then has more tutorials on remediating. Specifically, the Reviewing and Repairing Accessibility in Acrobat covers using the Reading Order Tool.
• Creating accessible PDFs in Adobe Acrobat – Help article by Adobe on creating accessible PDFs.
• All WCAG 2.1 PDF Techniques | WAI | W3C
• PDF Training Videos | Section508.gov