Ally and PDFs

Instructors – can your students fully access the PDFs you share in Brightspace?

Ally, a tool active in Brightspace, can help you check the accessibility of Portable Document Formats (PDFs). PDFs are a common and convenient way to share information with your students, but these files have specific accessibility characteristics. For example, accessible PDFs will always have selectable, searchable, and tagged text.

• Selectable: You can click and drag your cursor over the text in the PDF to highlight specific words, phrases, or characters. If you cannot select the text, the PDF may be interpreting text as images.
• Searchable: You can locate a specific word, phrase, or character in the PDF using the search bar. If you cannot use the search bar to identify specific text, this is another sign the PDF may be interpreting text as images.
• Tagged: Tags are labels attached to text in the PDF to indicate the text’s function. Paragraph text, for example, is labeled differently from text appearing in headings, headers, footers, or tables. Tags are essential for students who use screen-readers to interpret PDFs because tags add the context and relevance conveyed visually within the PDF design and layout.

These characteristics not only help students who use screen-readers, but they also benefit students with  invisible disabilities such as diagnoses that affect their cognitive, processing, and focus skills. Selectable, searchable, and tagged PDFs are also easier for Ally to convert into alternative formats.

Here’s the good news: you don’t have to check for these characteristics yourself. Ally checks for you!

How can Ally help?

Ally can…

• Check to see if a PDF is scanned (meaning its text is not selectable and searchable).
• Check to see if a PDF has tags.
• Provide coaching on how to edit and reupload PDFs.
• Provide coaching on why selectable, searchable, and tagged PDFs are accessibility essentials.

How can I make PDFs more accessible?

Ask yourself: Does this have to be a PDF?

A PDF’s greatest benefit is also one of its greatest accessibility drawbacks: PDFs are tough to edit, making them harder to remediate than Word Docs, PowerPoint slides, or Excel sheets. Ask yourself if it is necessary to provide this material to your students as a PDF, or if you can use a different file format. If PDF is the best route, give the file a thorough accessibility check before converting it to PDF, then use the Ally dials to review the PDF post-conversion. Learn more about creating accessible PDFs from Microsoft Office products.

Write equations using digital equation editing tools.

Many of us prefer to do math using a pencil and paper. When sharing that work with students, it’s tempting to snap photos of your notes and upload them to Brightspace as PDFs. These PDFs are difficult for assistive technology devices to interpret – plus, other students may have trouble reading your handwriting. When digitally sharing equations, formulas, or math problems, reduce the risk of confusion by writing the equation digitally in MathML or LaTeX format (available in the Equation tool within Brightspace’s HTML editor). New to these formats? Tools such as MyScript or Office 365’s Convert Ink to Math can help you translate writing into either MathML or LaTeX.

Avoid uploading scanned PDFs.

Scanned PDFs appear in your Brightspace course whenever you use a scanner to create a digital copy of a reading or article. Unless the scanner has Optimal Character Recognition (OCR) capability, the PDF will not contain selectable or searchable text. Think before you scan! A more accessible alternative is to provide your students with digital access to the reading courtesy of the Schumann Library.

Share readings and articles using library permalinks.

Let the Schumann Library help you maximize the accessibility of your readings. Use permalinks to provide your students with access to required chapters and articles. Learn more about permalinks in our Fueling Student Success series presentation, Digital Accessibility.

Improving your PDF practices with Ally

The video below presents common practices for creating and sharing PDFs, the barriers these practices create, and more accessible approaches to take going forward (including creating library permalinks):

Video not loading? Watch on Youtube.

You can also check out Ally for LMS’s tutorial Improve Content Accessibility for more guidance.