Accessible PDFs - the benefits

Accessible PDFs are important part of the accessible information family but have been hidden under the shadow of other, more familiar accessible formats such as Easy Read, Braille and British Sign Language.

If you'd like to find out more about how to build an accessible PDF read the blogpost in our sister website www.easy-read-documents.com.

For many visually impaired people, particularly those who haven't learnt how to read Braille (which is trickier than you'd think) an accessible digital format that can be read on a wide range of devices, is incredibly useful. 

Many commissioners gravitate to tried-and-tested formats such as Easy Read, which are very useful and accessible for a wider audience, way beyond the learning disabled community.  Once you have this version it's a good time to consider a spoken word audio transcription and an Accessible PDF.

Why 'Accessible PDF' and not Accessible Word document?

That's more straight forward than you think. MS Office is paid-for software, Adobe Reader is available as a free download.

Accessibility isn't just about plain, jargon-free English and technical considerations. If you don't have the software you can't access a document. Yet you still see many Word documents made freely available on websites.