Accessibility finding
Long PDF files without bookmarks, and PDF pages whose tag order differs from the page
Accessibility Warning Severity: Low
Part of the audit PDF accessibility. Finding id: accessibility.pdfStructure.
What it costs you
Readers have to page or search through a long document to find a chapter. That is slow for everyone and slowest with a screen reader or a switch.
What to do
Export the PDF again from its source file with bookmarks made from the headings.
What it checks
- PDF bookmarks missing
How to fix it
Export bookmarks from the headings
- Open the source document, not the PDF.
- Make sure chapters and sections use real heading styles.
- Export to PDF with the option that creates bookmarks from headings.
- Replace the file at the same URL, so existing links keep working.
How to check: Recrawl: the file has bookmarks. Open it and use the bookmarks panel to jump to a chapter.
Correct the reading order at the source
- Open the source document and find the page.
- Anchor text boxes and side notes where they belong in the text, and avoid columns made with tabs or text boxes.
- Export a tagged PDF again and replace the file at the same URL.
How to check: Recrawl, then listen to the page with a screen reader.
A real case
UK monitoring of public sector websites in 2020 and 2021 found PDFs generally less accessible than web pages, often without the information assistive technology needs. In the simplified tests there was normally an issue with the PDF that was tested.
Thresholds
| Name | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
min_pages_for_bookmarks | 21 | A PDF with at least this many pages is expected to have bookmarks. |