PDFs, while a convenient way to distribute documents, can be difficult to make accessible. Many of the PDFs stored in our Canvas courses and sent around campus are fine for most readers but are partially or entirely inaccessible for someone using assistive technology. If you have PDFs that don’t pass accessibility checks, Accessible Technology is here to help!

You can submit inaccessible PDFs (often scanned from paper originals or created with the “print to PDF” feature) to this PDF Remediation Request form and we’ll be able to update the PDF to be accessible. How long the remediation process takes will depend on the size and complexity of the document and overall workload, but most simple documents (less than 10 or so pages) should be able to be returned within a few days.

Not sure if your PDFs are accessible? You can check your course’s Ally Accessibility Report (enable it from Settings: Navigation if it’s not visible; this is not visible to students, so you can leave it active) or check individual PDFs with Adobe Acrobat’s Accessibility Checker tool.

Feel free to contact Accessible Technology Program Manager Michael Hanscom (mhanscom@highline.edu) with any questions.