{"id":5264,"date":"2018-09-11T10:34:01","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T14:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/?p=5264"},"modified":"2020-09-04T09:01:56","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T13:01:56","slug":"creating-accessible-pdfs-from-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2018\/09\/11\/creating-accessible-pdfs-from-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating Accessible PDFs from Word"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many people like to convert Word documents into PDF files for print consistency and to prevent document modification.<\/p>\n<h2>Check your software versions<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>Make sure you have the most recent version of Acrobat and Microsoft Office. If you are not sure take a look at \u201c<em><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2018\/09\/10\/what-version-of-acrobat-and-ms-office-do-i-have\/\">What Version do I have?<\/a><\/em>\u201d\n<ul>\n<li>As of this writing these are <a href=\"https:\/\/kb.swarthmore.edu:8443\/display\/SW\/Adobe+Acrobat\">Acrobat DC<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/kb.swarthmore.edu:8443\/display\/SW\/Microsoft+Office+2016\">Office 2016<\/a>. \u00a0Both are available to employees of Swarthmore. If you do not have either of these follow the next bullet point. \u00a0If you have both, jump to step 2.<\/li>\n<li>To download go to the <a href=\"https:\/\/swarthmore.edu\/its\">ITS Home page<\/a> and use the <strong><em>Install Software<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0button to find Acrobat DC and Office 2016. \u00a0Install Acrobat DC first (I\u2019ll explain why later).\u00a0\u00a0For more information on the installations, upgrading and licensing, please visit our software download page or contact\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:help@swarthmore.edu\">help@swarthmore.edu<\/a>\u00a0for assistance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Check for updates after the initial install.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>Accessible PDFs require Accessible Base Doc<\/h2>\n<p>To create an accessible PDF the original Word document must be accessible. \u00a0Follow these steps to successfully create accessible PDF files from Word (and nearly all MS Office) documents:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Create structure in your Word document by using the <a href=\"https:\/\/support.office.com\/en-us\/article\/add-a-heading-3eb8b917-56dc-4a17-891a-a026b2c790f2\">built-in styles<\/a> to create headings, bulleted lists and numbered lists<\/li>\n<li>Run the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teachucomp.com\/check-accessibility-in-word-instructions\/\">Accessibility Checker<\/a> to find barriers to access\n<ul>\n<li>Review &gt; Check Accessibility<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Use the <a href=\"https:\/\/support.office.com\/en-us\/article\/get-the-adobe-acrobat-tab-to-appear-b83cbba3-7bc1-4c75-b8dc-511e07a283f0\">Acrobat add-in in Word<\/a> to \u201cCreate a PDF\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Use Acrobat DC\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/5w8A77Vdwqc\">Action Wizard<\/a> to \u201cMake Accessible\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>One Caveat<\/h2>\n<p>Students who use assistive devices often find Word documents friendlier and easier to use than PDF documents.<\/p>\n<h2>Why Install Acrobat DC first?<\/h2>\n<p>Word will add an Acrobat tab if Acrobat DC is already installed on your system after you run the needed updates. \u00a0This is extremely useful when creating accessible PDFs.<\/p>\n<h2>References:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Microsoft has a good article about how to use styles when <a href=\"https:\/\/support.office.com\/en-us\/article\/add-a-heading-3eb8b917-56dc-4a17-891a-a026b2c790f2\">Adding a Heading<\/a><\/li>\n<li>A previous article on the ITS blog about <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2017\/09\/25\/formatting-syllabi-in-word-or-any-other-word-document\/\">Formatting a Syllabus in Word<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Lynda.com has a great course on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lynda.com\/Excel-tutorials\/Creating-Accessible-Microsoft-Office-Documents\/186696-2.html?org=swarthmore.edu\">Creating Accessible Documents with Microsoft Office<\/a>. \u00a0The course references an older version of Microsoft Office, but the principles are the same.<\/li>\n<li>Article from the Journal of Chiropractic Education, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2384173\/pdf\/JCE-20-2-139.pdf\"><i>Best Practices in Syllabus Writing<\/i><\/a><\/li>\n<li><i>Contents of a Learner-Centered Syllabus<\/i>. \u00a0This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2384173\/#app1\">appendix<\/a> may be helpful for its outline of what to include in a syllabus<\/li>\n<li>Using <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/5w8A77Vdwqc\">Acrobat DC\u2019s Action Wizard<\/a> to make PDFs accessible<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/support.office.com\/en-us\/article\/get-the-adobe-acrobat-tab-to-appear-b83cbba3-7bc1-4c75-b8dc-511e07a283f0\">Getting Acrobat tab to appear in Word<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many people like to convert Word documents into PDF files for print consistency and to prevent document modification. Check your software versions Make sure you have the most recent version of Acrobat and Microsoft Office. If you are not sure &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/2018\/09\/11\/creating-accessible-pdfs-from-word\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Creating Accessible PDFs from Word<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":5285,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,71],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-academic-technology","8":"category-accessibility","10":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Word2PDF.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ph2nPL-1mU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5264"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6907,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5264\/revisions\/6907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}