Introduction
Quick-reference checklist for creating accessible, WCAG-compliant PDF documents. This guide assumes you have a basic understanding of PDF files and builds on that knowledge with more detailed techniques and real-world scenarios. Whether you're using PDFly's free online tools or building your own workflow, this guide covers everything you need to know about pdf accessibility checklist 25 points to verify.
Understanding Quality
PDF quality encompasses consistency, accessibility, performance, and professionalism. From font embedding to cross-viewer compatibility, quality-focused practices ensure your PDFs look great and function correctly everywhere they're used.
Key Concepts You Need to Know
- Font embedding prevents text substitution and layout shifts
- Image resolution should match the output medium (72 DPI for web, 300+ for print)
- Linearized PDFs (Fast Web View) load progressively for better web performance
- Tagged PDFs enable screen reader accessibility and WCAG compliance
- Cross-viewer testing ensures consistent rendering across all platforms
Tips & Best Practices
Always embed fonts to ensure consistent rendering across all viewers
Test PDFs on multiple devices, browsers, and operating systems
Use PDF/A for long-term archival to ensure future compatibility
Optimize for web with linearization for faster online viewing
Create a quality checklist specific to your document type
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Not embedding fonts causes text substitution on different systems
- Using too-high image resolution wastes space without quality benefit
- Not linearizing PDFs for web causes slow loading and poor user experience
- Skipping accessibility tags excludes users who rely on screen readers
- Not testing across viewers leads to inconsistent rendering