Demystifying PDF Accessibility: Clearing those pesky errors + Unfamiliar Tips

Handouts Media

Presented at 2:15pm in Plaza Court 2 on Wednesday, November 17, 2021.

#33938

Speaker(s)

  • Brittany Usman, Instructional Designer, The University of Texas at Arlington

Session Details

  • Length of Session: 1-hr
  • Format: Lecture
  • Expertise Level: Intermediate
  • Type of session: General Conference

Summary

Most of us know the “easy” PDF errors to fix – such as not setting the language or not adding alt text to images. But, what about those harder errors about annotations not being tagged, tables failing regularity, and “other elements” not having alternate text? Join me to learn how to clear these pesky errors and pick up some lesser-known tips!

Abstract

You finish your award-winning PDF and run the accessibility check to find errors for character encoding, tagged annotations, table regularity, and other elements alternate text. What does this mean?! You tagged the content, including tables, and added alternate text to the images! These pesky errors can stump us, and the answers to these questions can be elusive even to the best “Googler”. From personal experience, resolving these errors was often trial and error. Now, I want to share what I have learned with you!

Join your peers in a session to demystify PDF accessibility! You’ll learn what the more difficult errors mean and how to fix them. You’ll also hear tips for using some of the lesser known options of the Tags and Content panels, manually tagging and marking content as artifacts, and hiding long descriptions for complex images. The end goal is to have you feeling more confident when working in Acrobat and to tackle any PDF errors thrown your way.

Keypoints

  1. Some PDF accessibility errors do not have clear guidance on how to resolve them.
  2. Learn how to resolve the unclear PDF accessibility errors.
  3. Lesser-known tips can boost confidence when working in Acrobat and creating accessible PDFs.

Disability Areas

Cognitive/Learning, Mobility, Vision

Topic Areas

Accessible Course Design, Accessible Educational Materials, Alternate Format, Assistive Technology, Faculty Development & Support, Uncategorized, Web/Media/App Access

Speaker Bio(s)

Brittany Usman

Brittany Usman is an Instructional Designer with The University of Texas at Arlington?Center for Distance Education. She holds a master's degree in Instructional Design & Technology?and TxDLA’s Digital Accessibility Certificate. She has over six?years' experience?working with faculty to design quality online courses that follow accessibility best practices and requirements.

She is an advocate for accessibility, participating in projects such as implementing Blackboard Ally and writing a white paper titled, “Student Success and Accessible Course Content at UTA”. She has also developed a course that is open to all UTA faculty and staff on how to make online course content accessible.

Handout(s)