Document Accessibility

The practice of creating or converting digital documents so they can be effectively accessed by people using assistive technologies, particularly screen readers. Accessible documents require proper semantic structure (headings, lists, tables with headers), logical reading order, alternative text for images, sufficient color contrast, and machine-readable text rather than image-based content. Common accessibility challenges include PDF documents created from scanned images, menus and infographics presented as images, complex tables without proper markup, and documents where visual layout conveys meaning not captured in the text. Standards like PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) and WCAG provide guidelines for document accessibility, and remediation tools can add structure to inaccessible documents.