Accessibility Features in Acrobat Reader 7

Before you start

Consider downloading Adobe Reader 7, even if you do not plan on using its accessibility features. Version 7 is an improvement over version 6 in many ways, and this article will be much more helpful if you can follow along with the newest version of Adobe Reader. As with all Adobe Readers, version 7 is a free download. Download Adobe Reader 7 - external link

• Make sure the checkbox that reads Download the full version of Adobe Reader remains selected. If you do not have the full version of Reader 7, you will not have the accessibility features covered in this article.
• During installation, you may be asked if you want to install Yahoo Toolbar and Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition. Unless you want to install these programs, make sure they are de-selected.

Accessibility quick check

The Accessibility Quick Check cannot always correctly identify whether a PDF is accessible or not, but it can alert the user whether the PDF is tagged or not or if there are glaring accessibility errors.

To run the quick check, choose Document > Accessibility Quick Check or press Ctrl + Shift + 6. You will usually see a window that reads "No accessibility problems were detected in this quick check". Please remember that the quick check can only detect the presence of tags, not their quality. It is possible for an inaccessible PDF to pass this check. If there are no tags present, the message reads "This document is not structured so the reading order may not be correct. Try different reading orders using the Reading Preferences panel." There are other messages, like an alert if there is missing alt text, but these are the two messages that usually appear.

Reflow

Reflow is more than just an accessibility feature. It is also useful for people who use handheld devices or other devices that have small screens. There are two main advantages to reflowing a document.

1. It eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling.
2. It changes the reading order to reflect either the order of the PDF tags or, if the document is untagged, tries to infer the correct reading order. Although this is usually an advantage, the reading order in Reflow view can sometimes be more confusing, especially if it has multiple columns or complex tables.

Reflow can be a very helpful feature, especially for people who need to enlarge the text, either within Acrobat Reader or using an external screen magnifier.

This is a screenshot of a PDF that has been enlarged 400%. Notice how much horizontal scrolling is necessary to view the whole document.

With Reflow enabled, the horizontal scroll bar disappears and all the text can be read within the screen.

To enable reflow, either select View > Reflow or press Ctrl + 4.

Automatic scrolling

Automatic scrolling might be especially helpful for a person who has a motor disability, or for someone who is using the Reflow feature. Like Read Out Loud, there are several shortcut keys to learn. Luckily, they are pretty intuitive. To enable automatic scrolling, choose View > Automatically Scroll or press Ctrl + Shift + H. The other shortcuts are listed in the table below.

Save as (accessible) text

You can save a PDF as plain text which can then be printed as braille. As with other accessibility features, this only works if the reading order is clear and if there are no complex tables. For example, the following is a screenshot from the last page of a PDF file from Adobe on accessible features of Acrobat 7. It may be helpful to open this PDF from the Adobe site - external link or view an accessible HTML version of the table in the screenshot.

The screenshot shows a table. The first column of the table lists accessibility features of Acrobat 7, and each of the subsequent columns lists whether a feature is available in a certain Acrobat 7 product (Reader, Standard, Professional etc.). If the feature is available, it is marked with an X. If it is not available, the cell is empty.

This same table, saved as "accessible" text, reads like this:

CREATING ACCESSIBLE ADOBE PDF FILES

FEATURE

ADOBE
READER 7.0

ACROBAT 7.0
STANDARD

ACROBAT 7.0
PROFESSIONAL

WINDOWS

MAC OS X

Create tagged Adobe PDF files from Microsoft
Office applications

X

X

X

Add security while retaining accessibility

X

X

X

X

Convert existing Adobe PDF documents to
tagged Adobe PDF files

X

X

X

X

This example raises a larger issue—the proper use of PDF documents. If this table were available in accessible HTML, then a person using a refreshable braille device would still be able to navigate the table. As a PDF, it may or may not be accessible, depending on the user's configuration. That is why it is still a good idea to use an HTML file on the web instead of or in addition to a PDF file.

Accessibility setup assistant

Although some of the features listed in this section have been available in previous versions of Acrobat Reader, it has been difficult to configure Reader for accessibility before now. This is because changes to settings had to be made in several places. The Accessibility Setup Assistant allows the user to make these changes in one place. This is one of the best new features in Reader 7.

To run the setup assistant choose Help > Accessibility Setup Assistant.... This will open a new window.

From this point, the user has a couple of choices to make. First, there are three radio buttons to choose from.

• Set options for screen readers
• Set options for screen magnifiers
• Set all accessibility options

It seems like choosing one of the first two radio buttons might help you better configure Adobe Reader if you use a screen reader or screen magnifier, but these actually limit your choices. For example, a screen reader user who selects the Set options for screen readers radio button will never be given the chance to choose a high-contrast color scheme or set the default screen enlargement, but there are many screen reader users who might benefit from these features. It is probably best to select Set all accessibility options.

Next, the user has an option to select Use recommended settings and skip setup. Even though this sounds tempting, it is probably best to make these changes manually. The point of the Assistant is to help you customize your preferences, and you should know what those changes are.

High contrast color

Reader can substitute a custom color for the text and background in place of the default colors.

In the Accessibility Setup Assistant, you can choose green, yellow or white text on a black background as well as white text on a black background.

For more options, choose Edit > Preferences > Accessibility from the menu on the left side of the window. If you check the box labeled Replace Document Colors you then have several options for color schemes:

• Use Windows color scheme. If you have a special color scheme for your computer already, this is probably the best option.
• Use High-contrast color combination. Just like in the Accessibility Setup Assistant, you can choose green, yellow or white text on a black background as well as white text on a black background.
• Custom color. You can select any color.

There are also two additional features which can be enabled or disabled:

• Only change the color of black text or line art.
• Change the color of line art as well as text.

Disable text smoothing

By default, Acrobat Reader smoothes text. Disabling text smoothing can make it easier to read when it is enlarged, especially with a screen magnifier.

In the Accessibility Setup Assistant, you can check Disable text smoothing.

For more options, choose Edit > Preferences > Page Display from the menu on the left side of the window. You can then select or de-select Smooth text, Smooth line art or Smooth images.

Default display zoom

The default display zoom can be set from 8.33% to 6400%.

• In the Accessibility Setup Assistant, choose a value from the dropdown list next to Default display zoom or enter a custom value in the field.
• In Edit > Preferences > Page Display there is a section labeled Magnification. Under this section you can change the default zoom and the maximum zoom available.

Keyboard selection cursor

The Hand Tool is usually the default pointer while hovering over a PDF, but you can make the Select Tool the default pointer instead. The Select Tool allows you to highlight text and other elements both with the mouse and with the keyboard.

This change can be made by selecting Always use the keyboard selection cursor in the Accessibility Setup Assistant or by selecting Edit > Preferences > Accessibility and then checking Always display the keyboard selection cursor at the bottom of the window. When you check this option, a blinking cursor will be visible in the body of the PDF and it can be moved with the keyboard.

Reading order

Normally, Acrobat tries to guess the best reading order for a document, but there are times when the default reading order is incorrect. If this occurs, you can try to change the reading order of a document by selecting Edit > Preferences > Reading, or you can use the Accessibility Setup Assistant. There are two main changes that can be made to the reading order of a document:

1. Reading Order. There are three options.
   1. Infer reading order from document. Leaving this as the default setting will almost always produce the best reading order.
   2. Left-to-right, top-to-bottom reading order. Every word will be read in this order, even if it is divided into columns, or there is a sidebar. Selecting this option seldom helps because reading order problems usually occur when the PDF is already being read left to right instead of some other way.
   3. Use reading order in raw print stream. This reflects the order of the original document converted into the PDF.
2. Override the reading order in tagged documents. If a document is incorrectly tagged, the reading order might be incorrect. Selecting this option will disable the tagged reading order and Adobe Reader will try to infer a better reading order. You should probably leave this unchecked, because the reading order of a tagged document should usually be better than the order inferred by Adobe Reader. Check this box if it is necessary for a specific document and then de-select it when you close the document.

Disable auto save

Auto save can cause a file to reload, causing confusion, particularly for screen reader users. To disable auto save do one of the following:

• Select Disable document auto-save in the Accessibility Setup Assistant
• De-select Automatically save document changes to temporary file every 5 minutes in Edit > Preferences > General.

Display in a new window

You can choose whether to open Acrobat Reader within the browser or whether to launch the program externally. Some users, especially screen reader users, may prefer to open the program in a separate program. It is easier to access certain features like Read Out Loud and auto-scrolling in a separate window.

In the Accessibility Setup Assistant, de-select Display PDF documents in the web browser. Or choose Edit > Preferences > Internet from the menu on the left side of the window and de-select Display PDF in browser.

Multimedia options

As the PDF format matures, Adobe keeps adding new features like fillable forms and embedded multimedia. Although this seems to defy the main purpose of a PDF (which is to preserve the layout of a document intended for print), multimedia will probably become more common in PDF files. As this occurs, accessibility considerations become necessary for people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

The Accessibility Setup Assistant, while valuable, really only addresses the needs of people using screen readers or screen magnifiers. Even though multimedia options are not addressed at all in the assistant, there are some accessibility options under Edit > Preferences > Multimedia.

The following options are available. Unfortunately, none of them are selected by default.

• Show subtitles when available
• Play dubbed audio when available
• Show supplemental text captions when available
• Show audio description (or video description, or descriptive video) when available

You can also change the default media player and preferred language in this section.