How to Make an ADA Compliant PDF in InDesign and Acrobat

The report is approved. The charts look good, the financials balance, and the PDF is ready to upload. Then someone asks whether it is accessible. If nobody planned for that during layout, the answer usually involves reopening the file.

Adobe InDesign can carry much of the structure an accessible PDF needs into the exported document. Acrobat Pro is where you inspect that structure, fix what did not survive export, and test the file. For a long annual report, doing the preparation in InDesign is much more manageable than repairing every page in Acrobat afterward.

What makes a PDF ADA compliant?

People search for an “ADA compliant PDF,” but there is no export preset that makes that legal determination. The ADA sets obligations. WCAG provides accessibility criteria, and PDF/UA is a technical standard specifically for accessible PDF files. Which requirements apply depends on the organization and the document's use.

In practical terms, a reader should be able to navigate headings, follow the content in a sensible order, understand images and charts, use links, and read tables with their headers. The text needs to remain actual text. A screen reader cannot make much of a page that is one large image.

This guide covers a report produced in InDesign and checked in Acrobat Pro. It is a production workflow, not legal advice or a certification checklist. Adobe changes panel names occasionally, so some labels may differ in your version.

1. Set up the InDesign file before laying out every page

Start with paragraph styles for your report title, section headings, subheadings, body copy, captions, and lists. Applying a larger font to a paragraph makes it look like a heading, but it does not give it a heading's structure in the PDF.

Use threaded text frames for continuous stories where the layout allows it. Keep text live rather than converting it to outlines. Build lists with InDesign's bullets and numbering features instead of typing bullet characters into separate frames. Those choices give the export something useful to work with.

Decide early whether the downloadable edition needs its own layout. A wide print spread filled with small labels can be difficult to read on a laptop, even when its tags are correct. Accessibility includes the visible design, not just the hidden structure.

2. Map paragraph styles to PDF tags

Open the Paragraph Styles panel, edit a style, and select Export Tagging. In the PDF section, assign the tag that describes the paragraph's purpose. Repeat for the styles used throughout the report.

• H1: the report's main heading.
• H2: major sections, such as programs or financial statements.
• H3: subsections within those sections.
• P: ordinary paragraphs and captions.

Follow the content hierarchy rather than the font size. A small section heading is still a heading. A large pull quote is not necessarily one. Avoid jumping from H1 to H4 just because a style happens to be fourth in your panel.

Repeating running heads, page furniture, and purely decorative elements should not interrupt the main reading sequence. Where appropriate, mark them as artifacts using the PDF tagging options, then confirm their treatment in Acrobat.

3. Define a reading order that makes sense without the layout

A sighted reader can see that a sidebar belongs beside a particular story. A screen reader follows the document's structure. Without a deliberate order, it may read the sidebar halfway through a sentence or move across columns in the wrong direction.

Open Window > Articles. Create an article, add the relevant text frames and objects, and arrange them in the order they should be read. In the Articles panel menu, enable Use for Reading Order in Tagged PDF. Include all meaningful content, not just the main story.

Anchor images that belong to a passage within its text flow. For a program profile, that might mean the heading, the introduction, the photograph and its caption, then the remaining body copy. A financial table should follow the paragraph that introduces it.

Treat the Articles panel as preparation, not proof. You still need to inspect the exported PDF's tag order, especially on pages with several columns or overlapping frames.

4. Write useful alt text for images and charts

Select an image and open Object > Object Export Options > Alt Text. Choose a custom description when the image's metadata does not provide a suitable one. Describe what the image contributes to this page, rather than listing everything visible.

“Chart showing emissions” does not tell a reader much. For example, a better description might be: “Scope 1 emissions fell from 1,200 to 960 metric tons of CO2e between 2024 and 2025.”

A complicated chart needs more than one sentence of alt text. Put its main finding in the surrounding copy and provide an accessible data table or a longer description with the underlying values. Do not hide an entire financial statement inside an image description.

Decorative shapes and background textures can be marked as artifacts in the PDF tagging options. A photograph, diagram, or logo that communicates something should not be discarded as decoration just to clear a checker warning.

5. Build real tables and check the visual design

Use InDesign tables for financials and disclosure data, not aligned text boxes that merely look like a table. In Table > Table Options > Table Setup, designate header rows. Keep the table structure simple when you can.

Merged cells and multiple levels of column headings require extra attention after export. In Acrobat, inspect the table tags and verify that data cells have the correct header relationships. Defining a header row in InDesign is a start, not a guarantee that a complex table will work properly.

Check contrast while the colors are still easy to change. WCAG AA requires at least 4.5:1 for ordinary text and 3:1 for large text. Large text means at least 18 point, or 14 point bold. Relevant graphical objects also have contrast requirements. Do not assume a brand color will pass just because it looks strong on screen.

Never make color the only way to interpret a chart. Add labels, patterns, or other distinctions. Keep units and footnotes readable, and check the PDF at a comfortable zoom level rather than only as a full spread on a large monitor.

6. Add links, bookmarks, and document information

Use Window > Interactive > Hyperlinks to create actual links. Underlined blue text is not a link unless you assign a destination. Write link text that names the destination, such as “View the full financial statements,” rather than repeating “click here.”

For a longer report, create bookmarks using the Bookmarks panel or a table of contents configured to generate PDF bookmarks. A reader should be able to reach the governance or financial section without paging through every program story.

Enter a meaningful title in File > File Info. “2026 Community Impact Report” tells a reader more than an internal filename. Set the appropriate language in your text styles, including language changes within the content. Verify the PDF's document language and displayed title in Acrobat after export.

7. Export a tagged PDF, not a print-to-PDF file

Choose File > Export and select Adobe PDF (Print) or Adobe PDF (Interactive), according to the document's needs. Enable Create Tagged PDF. Include hyperlinks and bookmarks where those options are offered. In exports that offer title and language settings, set those too.

Export pages rather than print spreads for the reading edition unless you have a specific, tested reason to use spreads. Keep text searchable and selectable. Do not use a printer driver to create the PDF: that route can lose the structure you just prepared.

It is often worth keeping separate print and accessible-download presets. The printer may need bleed, crop marks, or production settings that do not belong in the version people download from your website. Check security settings as well, so they do not prevent assistive technology from accessing the content.

8. Run Acrobat Pro's accessibility check

Open the exported file in Acrobat Pro and choose All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Check for accessibility. Run the check across the whole document. Older versions may call this tool Accessibility or Full Check.

Work through the results instead of treating the summary as a score. Confirm that the file is tagged, the title and language are set, images have appropriate text alternatives, and the table structure is present. Some findings require a manual check because the software cannot decide whether the content makes sense.

You can set the title under File > Properties > Description, choose to show it under Initial View, and set the document language under Advanced. Where the menus differ, use Acrobat's document properties controls for the same settings.

Automatic tagging can help with an existing untagged file, but it needs review. When you still have the InDesign source, fix recurring problems there and export again. Acrobat repairs alone will not carry into next year's report.

9. Inspect the tags and test with a screen reader

Open Acrobat's Accessibility tags panel, called Tags in some versions, and inspect the hierarchy. Check headings, paragraphs, lists, figures, and tables. Use the Reading Order tool to inspect page regions, but also verify the tag tree: the visual reading-order overlay is not the whole story.

Then use a screen reader with the PDF. NVDA on Windows is one option. Follow the document from the title through several representative pages, navigate by headings, read a table, and activate the links. For formal verification, review the full file against the applicable standard rather than stopping after a sample.

• Does a two-column story read down the first column before moving to the second?
• Do image descriptions appear beside the content they explain?
• Can a reader tell which header belongs to a financial value?
• Do running headers or decorative objects interrupt every page?
• Can links be reached with a keyboard, in a sensible order?

Acrobat's Read Out Loud feature can be a useful additional check, but it does not replace a screen reader test. Likewise, a passing automated result does not prove that descriptions are accurate, reading order is logical, or the PDF meets every applicable requirement. If PDF/UA conformance is required, include a validator for that standard alongside manual testing.

10. Check the final file after the last revision

A late chart replacement or inserted page can change the document's structure. Run the checks again on the exact file you intend to publish. Keep the InDesign source, export settings, final PDF, and a record of the checks and repairs together.

If the only source is a scanned PDF, OCR is the first step toward usable text, not the last step toward accessibility. Review recognition errors, add structure, and test the result. Fillable forms need additional work on field labels, instructions, errors, and keyboard order; they are outside this report-focused workflow.

Build accessibility into the report schedule

For an annual report, reserve time for financial tables and the final approved figures. For a sustainability report, plan how readers will access chart values and disclosure tables. For an impact report, give program photography and beneficiary stories the same care as the headline numbers.

Our SETI Institute annual report work shows the editorial side of that process: organizing research, stories, and financial information into a readable publication. It is a design example, not a claim of independently certified PDF conformance.

If your team is commissioning a report, agree on the required accessibility standard and who will verify it before design starts. We include accessible digital editions in our report design work; formal conformance auditing is scoped separately. For the broader website obligations, see our ADA website accessibility services and guide for state and local agencies.

Reference material

These resources cover the software procedures and PDF techniques behind this guide. Use them alongside your organization's required standard, not as a substitute for testing.

• Adobe: Creating accessible PDFs in InDesign
• Adobe: Structuring PDFs and reading order
• Adobe: Create and verify PDF accessibility in Acrobat
• W3C: PDF techniques for WCAG