Fix the PDFs people need, and stop making new broken ones.
We tag and repair the documents people actually use, rebuild the Word and InDesign templates that produce them, and help you retire the ones nobody needs. Every file we remediate is checked against PDF/UA and read with a screen reader before it comes back to you.
What a screen reader finds inside an untagged PDF
A PDF can look perfect and still be unreadable. Without tags, a screen reader gets one long run of text in whatever order the file happened to be drawn: columns interleaved, table cells flattened into a list of numbers, footnotes in the middle of sentences. Form fields have no names. Charts are silent.
Tags give the file a structure: headings, lists, tables with header cells, figures with alternative text, and a reading order that matches the visual one. The document also needs a language, a title that shows in the window bar, and, for long reports, bookmarks.
The international standard for all of this is PDF/UA. Files built on PDF 1.7 are covered by ISO 14289-1:2014, known as PDF/UA-1. Files created as PDF 2.0 are covered by ISO 14289-2:2024, or PDF/UA-2, which adds to the first part rather than replacing it.
What every remediated file includes
- A complete tag tree, with headings, lists, links, and figures marked correctly
- A reading order checked against the visual layout, including multi-column pages and sidebars
- Data tables with header cells and scope, and complex tables mapped cell by cell
- Fillable form fields with names, descriptions, and a logical tab order
- Alternative text for meaningful images and charts, with decorative content marked as artifacts
- A document language, a displayed title, and bookmarks for long documents
- Validation against PDF/UA with the PDF Accessibility Checker (PAC), plus a manual read with a screen reader
Remediate, convert, or retire
Large libraries rarely need every file fixed. We sort them first, so the budget goes to the documents people use.
| Kind of document | Usual decision | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Forms people fill out to get a service | Convert to an HTML form | Web forms are easier to make accessible, work better on phones, and send data straight to your systems. |
| Recurring publications such as agendas, minutes, and newsletters | Fix the source template | One accessible Word or InDesign template makes every future issue accessible at export. |
| Policies, reports, and notices that must stay as PDF | Remediate to PDF/UA | When the PDF is the official record, we fix the file itself and validate it. |
| Scanned, image-only PDFs | Recognize the text and remediate, or retype | A scan has no text at all until it's recognized. Short, current scans are often faster to retype. |
| Outdated files nobody opens | Retire or archive | Analytics and server logs show what's unused, and removing a file costs far less than fixing it. |
Fix the template once, and new documents are born accessible
Remediating finished PDFs is necessary for the documents you already have. It's also the most expensive way to get there, because the same problems come back with every new file.
The lasting fix is upstream. In Microsoft Word, that means real Heading styles instead of bold text, alt text on images, table header rows set to repeat, and exporting to PDF with document structure tags turned on. In Adobe InDesign, it means paragraph styles mapped to export tags, an Articles panel that sets the reading order, and alt text set in Object Export Options.
We rebuild your most-used templates, then train the people who use them, so the next agenda or annual report leaves the authoring tool already tagged.
For public entities, documents are web content too
The Justice Department's Title II rule sets WCAG 2.1 Level AA for the web content and mobile apps of state and local governments, and documents posted on their sites are part of that content. The rule has limited exceptions, for example for some archived and preexisting documents. Whether a file qualifies is a question for your attorney; we can tell you which files are used and what fixing them involves. See the compliance deadlines.
Priced per page, quoted after a sample
PDF remediation
Starting at
$9per page
Tagged, reading-order-checked PDFs validated against PDF/UA. Minimum order $450.
Request a quoteThe per-page price depends on complexity: a text-only policy takes less work than a financial report full of tables. Send a representative sample and we'll quote the batch. Template rebuilds and training are quoted separately.
What document owners ask us
Doesn't Acrobat's automatic tagging do this?
It's a starting point. Automatic tagging guesses at structure, and on anything more complex than a single column it often gets reading order, tables, and headings wrong. Every file we deliver is checked by a person, tag by tag.
Can you handle scanned documents?
Yes. We run text recognition, correct the recognized text, and then tag the file. For short documents that are still current, retyping into an accessible template is sometimes faster and cleaner, and we'll tell you when.
We have thousands of PDFs. Where do we start?
With an inventory. We sort files by use, age, and type, then recommend which to remediate, convert, or retire. A Digital Estate Audit does this across every site you publish, not just one library.
Do you fix Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files too?
Yes. Office files need the same structure: headings, alt text, table headers, and a language. We fix the files and, more usefully, the templates they come from.
How do you check the result?
Each file is validated against PDF/UA with PAC, reviewed in Acrobat's tag tree, and read with a screen reader. Checkers catch structural errors; only a person can tell whether alt text is accurate and the reading order makes sense.
Keep reading
Tell us what your website needs to do.
Send a link and a sentence about your deadline. You will hear back from a person within one business day, usually with a short list of questions and a proposed scope.