Before making an accessible document available to your students, it’s a good idea to run an accessibility check.

Using software to check accessibility

Various programs allow you to check a document for accessibility, for example regarding contrast, proper embedding of images and diagrams, or missing style sheets.

---

• MS Word: Review > Check Accessibility.
• Adobe Acrobat: Most versions of Adobe Acrobat have options for checking accessibility; they are however located in very different places depending on the version.

We recommend that you identify the version you are working with and search for instructions online.

---

There are also some independent programs for checking PDFs for accessibility, for example PAC, which is offered by the Access for All Foundation.

You can also use Adobe Acrobat to check PDFs from other sources for accessibility and to make improvements if needed (see Chapter 2.7).

Checking by read-aloud function

Ideally, you might consider listening to your documents read aloud by a screen reader. However, the programs used by your students (NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver) require a certain amount of specialist knowledge on the part of the user.

The read-aloud functions of Windows, Word and Adobe Acrobat are a poor replacement, as they don’t work like professional screen readers.

The best experts are the visually impaired students themselves. Why not employ one of them to run your checks for you?