Working with PDF/Universal Accessibility (UA) documents

WorkZone supports document accessibility by creating and validating PDF/UA documents.

Note: Creation and validation of PDF/UA documents is currently supported for PDF and Word documents only.

What are PDF/UA documents?

PDF/UA is not a separate file format, but an ISO standard that contains requirements for web-accessible PDF documents and applications. PDF/UA-compliant documents ensure accessibility for people with disabilities who use assistive technology to navigate and read electronic content.

Create a PDF/UA document in WorkZone Client

In WorkZone Client, you can validate your existing PDF documents for PDF/UA compliance or create a new PDF/UA compliant documents from existing Word documents.

  • For PDF documents:PDF/UA-compliant documents will receive the green "UA" badge on their document icons.
  • For Word documents: if the document passes the PDF/UA validation, a PDF/UA version of this document will be created.PDF/UA-compliant documents will have the green "UA" badge on their document icons.

See Validate a document for PDF/Universal Accessibility (UA) compliance.

Monitor failed PDF/UA documents

You can track your organization's accessibility compliance by monitoring your outgoing documents that have a failed PDF/UA status. See Monitoring failed PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) documents.

Fix a failed PDF/UA document

To fix a document that failed PDF/UA validation, you will need to:

  1. Edit the original document and correct the accessibility issues.
  2. Upload the updated document to WorkZone.
  3. Validate the updated document for PDF/UA compliance again.

Edit the original document

Although you can create and validate PDF/UA documents in WorkZone Client, you will need to fix the PDF/UA errors in the original Word or PDF document.

We recommend that you do that from a web accessibility tool provided by your organization. For example, PDF/UA Foundation organization offers a free PDF accessibility checker, PAC. Most standard Microsoft 365 products also have built-in accessibility checkers that provide suggested steps and recommendations for improving the content accessibility. Or you can use any other similar tool.

See the following articles by Microsoft:

Run the accessibility checker until you have fixed all accessibility errors.

Upload the fixed document to WorkZone

After fixing all discovered accessibility errors, save or upload the updated document on the selected case in WorkZone.

Send PDF/UA documents with SmartPost

You can send PDF/UA compliant documents with SmartPost. See Send PDF/UA compliant documents with SmartPost.

WorkZone PDF/UA error report

If you have fixed all accessibility errors shown by the accessibility checker in your original document, but PDF/UA validation in WorkZone Client still fails, check the WorkZone PDF/UA error report (available from the Documents > All unconverted saved search list on the dashboard).

Search for PDF documents with the Status: FAILED PDF/UA, and read the error description.

Troubleshooting

WorkZone uses Aspose accessibility checker for PDF/UA. You can find a full list of PDF/UA validation errors that might appear in WorkZone PDF/UA error report in the PDF-UA Compliance Test - Errors List by Aspose. Not all of these errors will appear in Word or other accessibility checker tools, as it is up to an application to define what to check for and how strict the checker should be.

Below you can find recommendations on how to fix the most common possible PDF/UA validation errors that might not appear in the accessibility checkers, but will be displayed in the WorkZone PDF/UA error report.

You might get this error, even when the alternative text is filled out (usually this happens, if the alternative text was prefilled from a template or automatically generated).

How to fix

Try to update the alternative text in your Word document, and save it again.

This error means that the document is not identified as a PDF/UA compliant.  

How to fix

You can fix it, for example, in Adobe DC Pro:

  1. Go to Preflight in Print Production.
  2. From the top drop-down, select PDF Standards.
  3. Click Fix Problems in PDF/UA tagging structure.

This error means that some fonts are not embedded in the document. Embedded fonts ensure reliable presentation of the text, because the accessibility tool viewer is not forced to substitute fonts that may not match the usage specified in the document. Additionally, embedded fonts can help speed up the editing process.

How to fix

You can fix it, for example, in Adobe DC Pro. 

  1. Go to Preflight in Print Production.
  2. From the top dropdown, select Adobe Pro Dc 2015 Profiles.
  3. Under PDF Fixups, click Embed missing fonts.

This means that there are issues with font width in your pdf document.

How to fix

You can fix it, for example, in Adobe DC Pro. 

  1. Go to Preflight in Print Production.
  2. From the top dropdown, select Adobe Pro Dc 2015 Profiles.
  3. Under PDF Fixups, click Fix potential font problems.

This error means missing information about some of your figures in metadata.

How to fix

You can fix it, for example, in Adobe DC Pro. 

  1. Remove the figure tag that is causing the problem.
  2. Re-add the figure tag using the Auto Tag Document option from the Accessibility tab.

PDF/UA validation in WorkZone fails for PDF documents that contain hyperlinks

Currently, WorkZone validation cannot auto-tag hyperlinks in the PDF documents. We are working on a solution for future versions. See possible errors and their workarounds below:

This means that there are hyperlinks in the PDF document that are not tagged with a link structure. You can fix this by converting the hyperlinks to plain text in the original Word document.

How to fix

  1. Right-click the hyperlink.
  2. From the action menu, select Remove hyperlink. The link will become plain text.

This means that PDF documents has hyperlinks that are not tagged with an alternative text. You can fix this by converting the hyperlinks to plain text in the original Word document.

How to fix

  1. Right-click the hyperlink.
  2. From the action menu, select Remove hyperlink. The link will become plain text.

PDF/UA validation of PDF reports

PDF reports include:

If PDF/UA validation fails for some of the merged documents or the summary part of the report, the report will be saved as a standard PDF file (without the green "UA" badge on the document icon).