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

Using the MakeAccessible plug-in
The MakeAccessible plug-in enables Acrobat 5.0 to convert untagged PDF files, such as those created with Acrobat 4.0, to accessible (tagged) Adobe PDF. This is useful if you are working with older PDF files for instance, or files that were not made in Microsoft Office 2000 applications. The MakeAccessible plug-in will be available as a free download at the Adobe Web site at www.adobe.com, and at access.adobe.com in the second quarter of 2001.

This section describes how to process a single document. However, the Make Accessible command can also be used with the batch-processing feature in Acrobat 5.0 to process multiple documents.

You do not need to run the Make Accessible command if you did either of the following:

Created a tagged Adobe PDF file using Microsoft Office 2000 as described in "Working with Microsoft Office 2000 Application Files".
Created a tagged Adobe PDF file from scanned images using Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0 as described in "Working with Scanned and Paper Documents".

Important: You should always check the resulting tagged Adobe PDF file with a screen reader to make sure everything is correct. For example, in a page with a very complex layout, the MakeAccessible plug-in may have difficulty determining the logical reading order, so it may put paragraphs in the wrong order. This problem won't be noticed by the Accessibility Checker because it can't read through the document to see if it makes sense; it can only check to see if all of the text has been tagged and put in the structure tree.

Open the PDF file in Acrobat.
Choose Document > Make Accessible.
Use the Accessibility Checker as described in "Using the Accessibility Checker".
Use the Tags palette as described in "Using the Tags Palette" to check the structure of the document.
Choose File > Save As.
Name and save the file.

Note: Using Save As, rather than Save is highly recommended because the MakeAccessible plug-in makes changes to the internal structure of the document which cannot be reversed.
Test the file with a screen reader when you are done, as described in "Testing Your Adobe PDF Files for Accessibility".