PDFs, Forms & Documents
Fixing the document library that most accessibility programs quietly skip.
The biggest liability usually isn't the website — it's the PDFs behind it.
Most organizations' largest accessibility liability isn't the website — it's the thousands of PDFs behind it. Reports, forms, agendas, statements, and policies, many scanned from paper, none tagged, none reachable by a screen reader. WCAG applies to them, and one-at-a-time remediation never catches up to publishing volume.
What's at stake: A document library grows faster than a remediation queue. Unless the way documents are produced changes, you are paying to remediate a backlog that regenerates itself every quarter.
This is you if
- Key forms are scanned images with no text layer
- Nobody can say how many PDFs the site actually hosts
- Documents are published by many people with no accessibility step
- Remediation is done ad hoc, one document at a time, on request
What we actually do, in order.
Inventory and triage
Count the library, then sort it: actively used, archival, and obsolete. A large share of most libraries can simply be retired or replaced with an HTML page.
Convert rather than remediate
High-traffic documents — forms especially — are usually better rebuilt as accessible HTML than remediated as PDFs. It's cheaper and the result is more usable.
Remediate what must stay a PDF
Tag structure, reading order, alt text, table headers, and form fields for the documents that genuinely need to remain documents.
Fix the source
Templates and authoring training in Word, InDesign, and your report tooling, so new documents export accessible instead of entering the queue.
Govern publishing
An accessibility check in the publishing workflow, with a named owner, so the backlog stops growing.
Deliverables, not a status update.
- A full document inventory with a triage decision on every item
- High-traffic forms converted to accessible HTML
- Accessible templates and trained authors
- A publishing workflow that stops creating new liability
Services this draws on
Other situations we're brought in for.
K-12 School Districts
District sites, parent portals and the classroom platforms families are required to use, under a Title II deadline.
Read the use caseNonprofits & Membership Bodies
Donation flows, member portals and grant applications, on a budget that assumes none of this was coming.
Read the use caseHotels & Restaurants
Reservation systems, accessible room information and the image-only menu — one of the most-litigated corners of Title III.
Read the use case