Accessibility rules apply to documents you publish, not only to web pages. A scan tests web pages. It finds links to PDF documents on those pages and lists them for you, but it does not test the documents themselves.
Finding the list
In Automated Scan Findings, a badge shows how many PDF links were flagged. Open it to see them all in Flagged PDF Links, and use Copy All to Clipboard to take the list away. The PDF report lists the number of PDFs requiring separate review in its summary.
Why PDFs need separate attention
A PDF can be perfectly readable to a sighted visitor and completely unusable to a screen reader. The most common problems:
- A scanned image of a document, with no actual text in it at all.
- No tags, so there is no information about headings, lists or reading order.
- Form fields that have no labels.
- Tables and charts with no structure or description.
What to do
- Ask whether it needs to be a PDF. Content that is published as a web page is usually easier to make accessible and to keep up to date.
- Start with the most important documents: forms people must fill in, terms they must agree to, anything required to use a service.
- Fix at the source. A document created with proper headings and structure in a word processor exports to a far better PDF than one fixed afterwards.
- Archive what nobody needs, and remove the link.
If you have a large number of documents, our team can help. See Requesting an Expert Manual Review or Getting expert help.