To find inaccessible PDFs on your website, start with a scan that crawls your site and flags every PDF in your content library. From there, open each PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro and run the built-in accessibility check, or review documents manually for tagged structure, alt text, reading order, and form field labels. Scans surface the documents and basic markup issues. A trained reviewer confirms whether each PDF actually meets WCAG 2.1 AA. Most websites have far more PDFs than the team realizes, and the majority were never built with accessibility in mind.
| Step | What It Covers |
|---|---|
| Crawl and inventory | Scan the website to list every linked PDF across pages, subdomains, and uploads folders. |
| Automated PDF check | Run Acrobat Pro's accessibility check on each file to flag tag, language, and metadata issues. |
| Manual review | Confirm reading order, alt text accuracy, table structure, and form labels. |
| Track and prioritize | Log each PDF inside a platform so the team can map remediation by traffic and risk. |
Why PDFs Get Missed
PDFs are easy to overlook because they sit one layer below the website. Teams audit the web pages, fix the HTML, and never open the documents linked from them.
Marketing uploads a brochure. HR posts a benefits guide. Legal publishes a policy. Each file becomes part of the site's content, and each one needs to meet the same WCAG 2.1 AA standard the pages do.
When the documents go untouched, they create a quiet pool of nonconformance. A user with a screen reader hits a link, opens the file, and finds untagged content with no reading order.
Step 1: Crawl the Site to Build a PDF Inventory
The first step is knowing what you have. A scan crawls your domain and outputs every PDF link it finds, including files buried in old blog posts and resource libraries.
Accessibility Tracker Platform includes scanning that flags PDFs alongside other accessibility issues on the page. The inventory becomes the working list for the project.
Expect the count to be higher than memory suggests. A mid-sized site often holds 50 to 500 PDFs. Government, education, and healthcare sites frequently hold thousands.
Step 2: Run the Acrobat Accessibility Check
Adobe Acrobat Pro has a built-in accessibility checker. Open each PDF, run the check, and review the report.
The checker flags items like missing document tags, missing title, missing language, untagged content, and figures without alternate text. These are the structural items that block screen readers from interpreting the file.
This check catches roughly the same share of issues a web scan catches on a page: about 25%. It is a starting point, not a verdict.
How Do You Know a PDF Is Actually Accessible?
A PDF is accessible when a trained reviewer confirms it. The Acrobat check might return a clean report on a file that still has a broken reading order or alt text that says nothing useful.
Manual review covers what automation cannot. A reviewer reads the document with a screen reader, walks through tab order on forms, verifies tables have proper header associations, and confirms that figures carry meaningful descriptions.
The combination is what matters. The scan tells you which PDFs exist and which have obvious issues. The reviewer tells you whether each one works for a person using assistive technology.
Step 3: Prioritize by Traffic and Importance
Not every PDF carries equal weight. A current benefits enrollment form matters more than a 2014 newsletter archive.
Sort the inventory by page traffic, document recency, and the role the file plays. Forms, policies, contracts, and required notices come first. Historical or rarely accessed files come later or get removed.
This prioritization keeps the remediation budget aimed at what users actually open.
Step 4: Track Every PDF Through Remediation
A spreadsheet works for ten documents. For a hundred, you need a platform.
Accessibility Tracker logs each PDF as its own item, records the issues identified, assigns it to a team member, and tracks the document through fixed, validated, and complete. Progress reports map portfolio-wide status so leadership sees the project move.
What Counts as a PDF Issue Under WCAG 2.1 AA?
PDFs map to the same success criteria as web content. The most common issues:
Untagged content (1.3.1 Info and Relationships). Missing or inaccurate alt text on images (1.1.1 Non-text Content). Incorrect reading order (1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence). Missing document language (3.1.1 Language of Page). Form fields without labels (3.3.2 Labels or Instructions). Tables without header associations (1.3.1 Info and Relationships). Missing document title (2.4.2 Page Titled).
An audit identifies which criteria each PDF fails and what the fix requires.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I scan my website to find every PDF automatically?
Yes. A crawler walks your site and lists every PDF link. Accessibility Tracker includes scanning that surfaces PDFs alongside page-level issues, giving you one working inventory instead of separate lists.
Do old PDFs on my site still need to be accessible?
If the document is linked and reachable, it is part of your live content and falls under the same WCAG conformance expectations as the rest of the site. Files that no longer serve a purpose can be removed rather than remediated.
What if a PDF was created by a third party?
The site hosting the PDF carries the conformance responsibility. If a vendor or partner produced the file, request an accessible version, remediate it in-house, or replace it with an HTML page.
How long does it take to remediate a PDF?
A short text document can be cleaned up in 10 to 20 minutes. A long form with tables, images, and complex structure can take several hours. Volume drives the project timeline more than individual file complexity.
Contact Accessibility Tracker to map your PDF inventory and track every document through full WCAG conformance: Contact Accessibility Tracker.