To achieve compliance with the new Title II regulations under the ADA, all images in a PDF must include descriptive ALT text or be marked as “decorative.”
For municipalities and state governments who publish a lot of PDF files that are accessed by residents every day, ensuring PDFs are accessible at scale is a difficult challenge.
AccessAbility Officer specializes in helping municipalities and state government agencies overcome ADA compliance challenges, from web accessibility to PDFs, mobile apps to upskilling teams, as well as procurement, governance, and change management. Learn about Accessibility Management here.
In states like California, Illinois, and Colorado, accessibility complaints are already climbing, especially around government documents and forms. ALT text is one of the easiest fixes agencies can make now to prevent future violations.
Here’s how to use alt text to improve accessibility, usability, and readability of your PDFs for residents with disabilities.
Step-by-Step Guide to Adding ALT Text to Images in Acrobat Pro
Open Your PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
Adobe does not make accessibility easy. First case in point, you found this article. Second, the free versions of Acrobat Reader don’t include accessibility tools, so you have to pay for Adobe Pro to include alt text in your images.
AccessAbility Pro Tip: Adobe Pro costs about $20 per month, but a year’s subscription costs less than one hour of legal counsel if you get hit with a lawsuit. To remediate a “simple” PDF for ADA compliance, prices start at $6 per page and go up from there based on complexity.
Launch the “Set Alternate Text” Tool
Activate All Tools, then Accessibility, then Set Alternate Text.
Acrobat will then use accessibility automation testing to scan for all figures, logos, and charts so you don’t miss any.
This is a great use of automated testing in accessibility compliance – locating the images that may need alt text and manually reviewing them to determine an appropriate description.
Review the Detection Window
In the Detection Window, Acrobat Pro will show a list of the images it found.
Check carefully. Some meaningful graphics may be missing alt text and will need manual tagging.
Update the alt text with a meaningful, descriptive alt tag. Here’s how you do that…
Write Clear, Descriptive ALT Text
Descriptive ALT text explains important information contained in the image the user needs to know.
It is more than what the image looks like. Appropriate ALT text concisely captures the purpose of the image.
Example: “Bar chart showing Texas high school graduation rates rising from 82% in 2022 to 88% in 2024.”
AccessAbility Pro Tip: ALT text should answer the question: If the image disappeared, what would I need to say to make sure someone still understands it?
Mark Decorative Images as Decorative
Backgrounds, borders, or repeated icons are decorative. If they are not marked as decorative, they become overwhelming and distracting to screen reader users. For example, images of hands shaking or people walking should be decorative.
Pro Tip: Logos
Give the first logo a full description (e.g., “City of Chandler logo: rising sun over blue waves with text ‘City of Chandler.’”).
On later pages, a shorter ALT text like “City of Chandler logo” is enough. In very long PDFs, repeat the shorter version periodically (every 10 pages or so) so screen reader users know whose document they’re in.
Save Your Changes Before Closing
After you’ve provided descriptive ALT text for images that need it, and marked the decorative images as “Decorative,” click Save and Close.
Use the Tags Panel
Expand the <Figure> tags under the Tags panel. This view shows whether Acrobat identified everything correctly.
Automation cannot do everything for us regarding accessibility. So double check that the ALT text is appropriate and descriptive.
Edit ALT Text in Properties
Right-click a <Figure> → Properties → enter or adjust the description.
Example: “Photo of veteran at a computer completing an online GI Bill housing application.”
This makes the context meaningful, not just “veteran picture.”
Test PDF Accessibility with Screen Readers
Running Acrobat’s Accessibility checker is a great start, but using NVDA, JAWS, or VoiceOver helps you validate the ALT text is appropriately decorative for ADA compliance.
In PDF Accessibility Simplified Phase II, we show you how to use your screen reader to test for accessibility in your PDFs.
How Do Governments Achieve PDF Accessibility and Title II Compliance Under the ADA?
Whether it’s PDF accessibility or web accessibility, there are 2 paths for municipalities and state agencies to take.
- Begin updating processes, upskilling teams, and upgrading technology needed to scale PDF accessibility.
You can get started for FREE doing that here with PDF Accessibility Simplified – Phase 1. - Partner with a team who manages digital accessibility compliance for municipalities and government agencies.
We know. ADA Compliance can be overwhelming. AccessAbility Officer manages digital accessibility compliance for municipalities and government agencies with over 30 million residents in the United States collectively.
Ability Is Our Middle Name
Ready to talk? Discover Accessibility Management.