Accessibility best practices

Use the checklist below to produce accessible PDFs in remediation pipelines.

Preserve structure first

Build and keep meaningful structure before and after processing:

• Keep heading levels consistent.
• Tag lists as lists, not as plain paragraphs.
• Add correct table semantics for rows and cells.

Verify reading order

Set reading order to match how people read the content, not just how objects appear on the page.

• Test documents with screen readers.
• Verify that multicolumn content reads in the intended sequence.

Keep non-text content meaningful

Mark decorative content as artifacts when appropriate. Add descriptions for meaningful graphics so assistive technologies can interpret them.

Design for keyboard and assistive technology users

When you generate or edit source documents, keep navigation and interaction accessible:

• Add clear labels to form controls.
• Keep tab and focus order predictable.
• Maintain sufficient color contrast in exported visual content.

Add human QA for high-stakes outputs

Auto-tagging reduces manual effort, but legal and compliance-heavy documents still need human review before publication.

Use the release gates below for production remediated documents:

• Run sample-based manual reviews.
• Run automated checks in CI/CD.
• Run regression checks when templates change.