Adobe Acrobat - How To Create Accessible Adobe® PDF Files Booklet

Working with Microsoft Office 2000 Application Files
When you install Acrobat 5.0, it installs Adobe PDFMaker 5.0 in your Windows Office 2000 applications. When you use PDFMaker 5.0 with Word 2000, Excel 2000, or PowerPoint 2000 you can create tagged Adobe PDF files that preserve hyperlinks, styles, bookmarks, and the structure of tables present in the source document.

Tips for making an accessible Adobe PDF file
Here are some things you can do to improve the quality of structure in your files, and therefore their accessibility:

Create your Word documents in Word 2000, rather than in Word 97. If they're already in Word 97, open and save them in Word 2000. Word 2000 lets you create tagged Adobe PDF, which has greater functionality for accessibility than the structured Adobe PDF created from Word 97 documents.
When you write a document in Microsoft Word, be sure to use styles to format text such as titles, headings, and paragraphs. The styles provide structure information when you create a tagged Adobe PDF file. For example, do not use the Enter key to add space between paragraphs. Instead, use the "Spacing Before" and "Spacing After" paragraph properties to achieve this effect.
Use the Columns command in Word to create columns. Don't use tabs to simulate double-column text.
Use the Insert Table command or Draw Table tool in Word to create tables.
Add alternate text to all images. For example, in Word, you can add alternate text describing an image by using the Web tab of the illustrations Properties dialog box.
If you created an illustration out of several smaller illustrations, use the Group command to group them into a single illustration.

Creating an accessible Adobe PDF file with a Microsoft Office 2000 application
This section describes how to use Word 2000, Excel 2000, or PowerPoint 2000 to create an accessible Adobe PDF file. The instructions use a Word 2000 document as an example.

To create an accessible Adobe PDF file in a Microsoft Office Application:

Open the document in the Microsoft Office application.
Choose Acrobat > Change Conversion Settings.
Click the Office tab.
Select the options shown below. In particular, make sure Embed Tags in PDF is turned on and Page Labels is turned off.
Click the Bookmarks tab in the dialog box.
From the list, select the styles for which you want to create Adobe PDF bookmarks. Then click OK.
Choose Acrobat > Convert to Adobe PDF on the Microsoft Office application menu bar, or click the Convert to Adobe PDF button on the application toolbar.
Name and save the file.

Congratulations, you've created an Adobe PDF file that retains both document content and structure.

Before you publish the file, be sure to take advantage of the accessibility tools available in Acrobat 5.0. To do so, follow the instructions provided in "Using the Accessibility Checker". If needed, use the Tags palette as described in "Using the Tags Palette". When you're done, test the file with a screen reader as described in "Testing Your Adobe PDF Files for Accessibility".

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Working with Existing PDF Files

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