View Topic - Accessible PDFs

The University of Washington Accessible Technology provides a well organized web presentation on Document Accessibility.  Here are some of the main highlights and the links to each section:

When creating digital documents, there are a few basic issues to keep in mind in order to ensure your content is accessible. These issues are the same regardless of whether your document is in HTML, Word, PDF, or another document format. A good starting point for learning about accessibility is our IT Accessibility Checklist. The following items from the Checklist are especially applicable to digital documents:

Miranda Lacy and Harold Rogers became fast friends during their undergraduate years. Both students are Blind and say learning materials, from course modules to readings for class, have been inaccessible to them at West Virginia University (WVU). Many documents are not compatible with a screen reader, which is software that translates what is visually represented on a webpage into audible speech. Rogers opened a PDF from one of his classes: a word in the title had an extraneous gap, so the automated voice of the screen reader said "misspell, misspell, misspell," as if it's repeatedly walking into a virtual wall. Rogers navigated down to an image of a chart. "Unlabeled text box, unlabeled image, page break," the reader said. Both students say they have encountered dozens of inaccessible documents in a single semester, and that they have spent more time troubleshooting their education in the past three years than actually learning. Digital accessibility is a major barrier for Blind students and other Students with Disabilities. It is an ever-changing landscape that often isn't designed with disabilities in mind.

This is the Shining Lamp Topic Collection List of frequently accessed topics.  Each link will offer a View  of Topics Collected of articles and resources on the topic shown in the link title.  The following links can easily be shared out in, "How To" documents and email messages. These are particularly useful in a "for more information, see:" section.  

If additional articles or resources are added to any of these topics in the future, links previously sent out will also automatically reflect those additions/changes.  So, no need to keep updating people on new information related to these topics.  They will already have it!