PDFs and Digital Accessibility

About PDFs and when to use them

A PDF, or Portable Document Format, is a widely used file type developed by Adobe to share documents in a consistent, reliable way. Whether opened on a PC, Mac, tablet, or smartphone, a PDF preserves the layout, fonts, and visuals exactly as intended. This makes it a preferred format for distributing polished, final versions of documents.

When PDF is the preferred document choice

• Final distribution: PDFs act like a digital printout—difficult to alter and ideal for sharing completed reports, résumés, legal documents, and other finalized materials.
• Consistent appearance: Because PDFs lock in formatting, viewers see the same layout regardless of device or software.
• Security features: Password protection, encryption, and editing/printing restrictions help safeguard sensitive information.
• Professional printing: Printers rely on PDFs because the fixed layout ensures the printed result matches the digital file.
• Broad accessibility: Most devices come with built-in or free PDF readers, and many browsers open PDFs without additional software.

There is also PDF/A, a specialized version designed for long-term archiving. It removes features that could cause display issues over time, ensuring archived documents look the same years later.

When Microsoft Word* is the preferred document choice

• Drafting and revising: Microsoft Word is suited for creating content, revising text, and managing edits.
• Team collaboration: Features such as tracked changes and comments make it easy for multiple contributors to work in the same file.
• Flexible editing: Word files are easy to modify, and elements like images and text can be added or removed quickly.

*Many enterprises systems, like the university, use Microsoft products. However, with its accessibility accessibility features, lower cost and product flexibility, some organizations have switched over to Google Suite.  If you find that you are working with colleagues that use Google Suite, the Google Docs product is the equivalent to Microsoft Word, and can often be saved to and opened in Word without issue.

Best practices

A common workflow is to write and refine your document in Word, then convert it to PDF once it’s ready for distribution. Verify your document is accessible before distributing to others.

PDFs on the web

Have a document that you would like to host on the university website? Although there are some cases where it makes sense to host a PDF on a website, most PDFs should be converted to HTML content instead. HTML provides better accessibility and usability for our website visitors.

How people actually use PDFs

A recent survey of more than 500 employees at mid-sized and large companies highlighted how essential PDFs are in office environments. Half of respondents said they frequently need to do more than simply read a PDF. The most common tasks included:

• Searching for information
• Copying text or data
• Rearranging, adding, or removing pages
• Making small text corrections
• Merging multiple files into a single PDF

Over half of participants reported needing to perform at least one of these tasks regularly. Basic, free PDF viewers can handle simple actions such as opening a document, searching text, or occasionally copying content. However, more advanced tasks—including editing text, reordering pages, or combining multiple file types—generally require more capable software, such as Adobe Acrobat Pro.

When free tools fall short

PDFs created by scanners are a common challenge. A scanned PDF is essentially a picture of a page, not a text-based document. As a result, basic PDF viewers can display it, but cannot copy or search its text. Additionally, and more importantly, a scanned PDF is not accessible - meaning a screen reader user would not be able to access it's content.  The issue of scanned documents is widespread—81% of surveyed employees said they struggle with this problem.

To work with scanned PDFs, software with optical character recognition (OCR) is needed. OCR converts the image into selectable, searchable, and editable text. Most free viewers cannot perform this function, so more advanced PDF tools, like Adobe Acrobat Pro, are required.  Once a scanned PDF has been converted into text, be sure to review its content, as these tools sometimes can confuse letters or numbers, and aren't entirely accurate.