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Meeting the standard: How do I know if my PDF file is compliant?

Handouts

Presented at 1:45 pm in Penrose 2 on Thursday, November 20, 2025.

#41386

Speaker(s)

  • Chad Chelius, Trainer/Consultant/Accessibility Wizard, Chax Training and Consulting

Session Details

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

Summary

When it comes to providing our clients with an accessible PDF file, we all want to make sure that our documents are compliant to one of the recognized standards. But achieving this can be harder than it might seem. In this session, we'll discuss what it means for a document to be accessible, what it means to meet the standard, and how to achieve the creation of a standards-compliant file.

Abstract

Making a PDF file accessible is a good start. But to show our clients that our PDF files are truly accessible, we need them to be compliant to a recognized standard. This requires using automated checkers that can evaluate are documents and confirm that they are accessible to a standard, but it also requires us to test our documents using assistive technology. In this session you'll learn about the standards that are available and you'll learn about how to check your documents against those standards. You'll also learn about common pitfalls in your PDF files that checkers won't catch!

In this session you can expect to learn answers to the following:

  • What are the standards?
  • How do I check against the standards?
  • What do I need to watch out for?
  • How do I avoid common pitfalls?
  • How do I test using assistive technology?

Bring your questions to this session and be prepared to learn all about PDF compliance to ensure your files are as accessible as possible?

Keypoints

  1. Compliance is key to insuring that your PDF files are truly accessible
  2. Compliance goes beyond the checker. Learn how to achieve compliance beyond the checkers!
  3. Building your document with purpose will help you to achieve compliance.

Disability Areas

All Areas

Topic Areas

Accessible Course Design, Assistive Technology, Teaching about Accessibility in Curriculum, Uncategorized

Speaker Bio(s)

Chad Chelius

Chad Chelius is a trainer, author, consultant, and speaker as well as Director of Training Solutioins and Principal for Chax Training and Consulting. He resides in the Philadelphia area and has been using Adobe products for over 25 years. He began his career in the design and publishing industry. As an Adobe Certified Instructor and consultant he teaches and advises on all Adobe print and web products, specializing in InDesign and InCopy workflows, Illustrator, automation, and PDF accessibility using InDesign, Word, and Adobe Acrobat. He works with clients both large and small in and outside of the United States, helping them to solve design, workflow, and accessibility challenges using Adobe products. Chad is a LinkedIn Learning author and you can connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Handout(s)