Review Documents on Your Site
The first step to ensuring your site does not contain outdated or inaccessible documents is to review all documents referenced on your site.
Learn more about how to find and remediate documents on your site.
Resources for Creating Accessible Documents
Accessible documents are scannable, searchable, legible, readable, and tagged correctly. You can improve the accessibility of your documents with these tools and resources.
Purchasing Adobe Acrobat Pro
Adobe Acrobat Pro is required to remediate PDF documents. Contact your department or college administrator to request an Acrobat Pro license, or send a request to the Help Desk at helpdesk@boisestate.edu.
CommonLook PDF and Remediation Services
If you are responsible for remediating a large volume of PDFs for your department, we recommend purchasing a license for CommonLook PDF. You can also send documents to CommonLook for remediation. Costs vary depending on the document. For more information on costs or to purchase a license, contact Andrea Combs at acombs@commonlook.com.
Converting PDF Content to Web Content
Convert to Plain Text
One of the best ways to remove inaccessible documents from your website is to convert them to web content. However, this can be daunting if you have a lot of content or lengthy documents. Simply coping and pasting the content can also cause accessibility errors as the styling in the document can come over with the text.
To avoid this you can generate a plain text version of your document to allow for easier copying and pasting into WordPress. Once your text is in WordPress, then you can use the web theme to style your content in an accessible way.
What types of documents work best for this process?
Since you are converting documents to plain text, documents that are more text based will work better for this process. However, if you do have documents with lots of graphics and images, you may need to add those media files to the web page after the text is added. Simply upload your images to the media library and add to the web page as you normally would.
What will you need to get started?
- Google Drive, Adobe Acrobat Reader, or Adobe Acrobat Pro
- A document, or documents that you want to convert to web content
- Your WordPress website
Converting PDF Documents with Google Drive
- Review Google’s recommendations for what file work best for conversion
- Upload your PDF document to Google Drive and make note of the location. You may want to create a specific folder to help keep track of your documents.
- Locate the document in Google Drive and right-click to select Open with > Google Docs. Keep in mind the style of your document will likely appear very different at this point. If needed touch up any text or formatting at this point in time. For example, removing bullet points or other style.
- Next, select File > Download as > Plain Text (.txt) to generate a plain text file. This file will download to your computer and will further remove additional styling from your document.
- Open the text file and copy the text. Now you can paste this content into a new web page on your WordPress site and style as needed using the university web theme.
Converting PDF Documents with Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Open your PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Select File > Save as Other > Text…
- Select a location to save your text file then select Save
- Locate and open your text file from the saved location and copy the text. Now you can paste this content into a new web page on your WordPress site and style as needed using the university web theme.
Converting PDF Documents with Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Open your PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Select File > Export To > Text (Accessible)
- Select a location to save your text file then select Save
- Locate and open your text file from the saved location and copy the text. Now you can paste this content into a new web page on your WordPress site and style as needed using the university web theme.
Need help converting your PDFs to web content?
The process of repairing existing PDF documents is time-consuming, confusing, and sometimes very difficult. Instead, consider alternative, better options to present your content on the web, especially in consideration of the mobile device-centric world we now live in.
Review the video Shifting from Print to Digital: Brochures, Flyers, and Newsletters for some ideas to get started today!
If you need assistance or recommendations on how best to convert your PDF content to web content, contact the OIT Web Accessibility team. Together, we will find a solution that works for you and your web users!
Contact Web Accessibility TeamTake your documents to the next level with the Micro-Certification Badge!
Want to learn even more about creating and publishing accessible documents? Find details about and register for the Web Content Accessibility Micro-Certification Badge Course at Training and Support. In this course you’ll learn, practice, and demonstrate your skills in creating accessible web content, documents, images, and media. Currently, two of the four scheduled levels are available.
Level 1: Web Tools and Remediation
In this level you will:
- Identify web accessibility requirements
- Write alternative text descriptions
- Publish accessible web content in WordPress
- Troubleshoot and remediate accessibility errors
- Articulate the needs for accessible web content at Boise State University
Level 2: Document and Media Accessibility
In this level you will:
- Identify and evaluate accessibility of documents (MicroSoft Office, Google Docs, and PDFs), images (static and animated), and time-based media using Monsido
- Create and publish accessible documents and forms
- Create and publish accessible images
- Evaluate, remediate, and publish time-based media including captions, audio description, and transcript using Camtasia Studio
- Publish accessible documents, images, and time-based media on a webpage using WordPress
- Articulate needs for accessible documents, images, and time-based media at Boise State University