Document accessibility

The practice of creating digital documents (PDFs, Word files, presentations, spreadsheets) that can be read and navigated by people using assistive technologies. Key requirements include semantic structure tags, logical reading order, alternative text for images, marked table headers, specified document language, and sufficient colour contrast. Document accessibility is a persistent challenge in academic publishing, government communications, and corporate environments, where the vast majority of PDFs fail to meet basic accessibility criteria despite established standards like PDF/UA.