Creating barrier-free PDFs

The Barrier-Free Information Technology Ordinance (BITV) is an extension of the Act on Equal Opportunities for Disabled Persons (BGG) of April 27, 2002. This regulation applies to all federal websites and intranet services. One thing the BITV tests for is how PDF documents are handled.

PDF documents enable reproduction of contents in accordance with original layouts, regardless of the computer system used to access them. Many companies and government agencies use PDF documents to share information, and these documents are increasingly being distributed via the internet.

Federal authorities must, and companies should use PDFs to make sure their documents are legible on any device.

The release of Adobe Acrobat 7 made it possible to create PDF files that are largely barrier-free and BITV-compliant.
Barrier-free PDF documents can be opened, read and used by anyone, even with output devices such as a screen reader or PDA.

Barrier-free PDF documents are characterized by:

• navigation aids (such as bookmarks and table of contents)
• logical reading order
• descriptive text for all graphics, images and links
• identification of document language
• searchable text
• organization by tags
• screen reader-compatible security settings
• barrier-free text entry fields

Accessibility and PDFs

Workshop: "Creating Barrier-Free PDFs"

Over the course of this two-day workshop, we teach you the skills necessary to work with source documents (such as Word, InDesign) and create PDF documents that meet the requirements of the Barrier-Free Information Technology Ordinance (BITV).

• Accessibility according to BITV - What makes a PDF barrier-free?
• Format the source documents (work with styles, create and customize your own templates and paragraph and character styles, formatting of tables, working with hyperlinks, graphics, footnotes, etc.)
• Create navigation aids
• Define the PDF export template, convert the source documents to PDF format
• Check the PDF documents
• Acrobat PDF editing tools (working with tag trees, test functions, dealing with graphics, links and forms)

Creating barrier-free PDF documents

Just like HTML pages, barrier-free PDFs aren't created at the press of a button.

Well-organized source documents lay the groundwork for a barrier-free PDF, and working with styles is a must. Only when styles are correctly created and used is the first step towards an accessible PDF complete.

Working with styles in the source document is not only an essential step for a barrier-free PDF, it also makes document creation easier, ensuring a more consistent structure and saving time.