Making PDFs Work for Everyone: Simple Tips for Inclusive Content
19 January 2026
This blog is written by Heather Pennington and Alex Stewart from the Learning and Teaching Academy.
PDFs are widely used across the university to share information with students and colleagues, but they’re not always the most accessible option. Unlike web pages or properly formatted Word documents, PDFs often lack the structural elements that assistive technologies such as screen readers need to interpret content accurately. Issues like image-only scans, complex layouts, and missing tags and Alt text can turn a simple document into a frustrating or even unusable experience for some users. Whenever possible, consider alternatives like Word or HTML/Ultra Docs, or ensure your PDFs are fully accessible and correctly tagged using tools such as Adobe Acrobat. Here’s how you can make sure PDFs work for everyone.
Preferred formats
The easiest way to support accessibility is to try and avoid using PDFs altogether or supplement them with an accessible format. Use Word documents or HTML pages (such as Ultra Documents in Learning Central), which are more flexible and inherently accessible.
If PDFs are necessary
Sometimes PDFs are unavoidable due to the nature of the content. In those cases:
- Tag your PDFs properly so screen readers can navigate headings, lists, images, and paragraphs.
- Add bookmarks for longer documents.
- For scanned files, apply Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to create machine-readable text. You can request accessible digital copies of course readings through the University Library Service.
Creating Accessible PDFs in Word
If you don’t have Adobe Acrobat, you can still create accessible PDFs directly in Word. Be sure to make sure your Word documents are accessible before converting them to PDFs.
Accessibility tools
If you do use Adobe Acrobat Pro, follow this Adobe Accessibility Guide to make your PDFs as accessible as possible.
Need help?
For more tips on enhancing accessibility explore the Digital Accessibility Guide today and put accessibility and inclusion at the heart of your teaching and learning this year.
If you’d like more support or have ideas for future blogs, contact us at LTAcademy@cardiff.ac.uk. Together, we can make digital content more inclusive for everyone.