How to Create Accessible Adobe PDF Documents

Adobe Acrobat allows its users to create accessible PDF documents from files that are either scanned or originally created in Microsoft Word. Once these documents are converted to PDF format, they can be accessed for editing and modification. Users can bookmark the document, create form fields, add a digital signature or add additional text and graphics. Ensure that your PDF documents offer accessibility by following this helpful guide.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Scanned Documents

1. Open Adobe Acrobat. Click the "File" tab and choose "Open." Change the file type to "All Files," select the scanned document from where it is saved on your computer's hardware and click "Open."

2. Click the "Document" tab and choose "OCR Text Recognition." Click "Recognize Text Using OCR." Choose "Current" or "All Pages" depending on how many scanned pages will be included in the PDF document. Click "OK."

3. Click "File" and choose "Save As." Save the document as a PDF file and click "OK." The document is now accessible and can be edited and modified as a PDF file.

Microsoft Word Documents

4. Open the document in Microsoft Word.

5. Click the "File" tab and choose "Save As." Click 'Adobe PDF." In Word 2007, click the "Office" button to access the "Save As" option.

6. Choose a location to save the file, type in a file name and click "Save." Adobe will convert the Word document into a PDF document. Depending on the document's length, this may take a while. Once the conversion is complete, the accessible PDF document will open in Adobe Acrobat.

References

• Adobe Acrobat 8 Classroom in a Book; Adobe; 2007

Resources

• Adobe Acrobat website