Make sure PDFs have gone through OCR (Optical Character Recognition) processing to make them accessible for screen readers.
For an Existing PDF
- For existing PDFs, use the Creating Accessible PDFs and Ally guide from CRIT to learn more about Ally (in Canvas) and Adobe Acrobat options.
- If the text is searchable, it probably has gone through OCR processing.
- If the text is not searchable, it is more akin to an image and needs to be processed for optimal accessibility.
Making a new PDF
- If you are using a scanner with specific software, see if there are options for recognizable text (it may be phrased in different ways depending on the product).
- If you are using a smart device (phone, tablet, etc.) there are apps on the market for mobile scanning with OCR options. For ideas, see The Best Mobile Scanning Apps (Keough, 2020).
