Use Action Wizard to automatically make PDFs 508 compliant

Suppose you have a few PDF files and you need to ensure that all of those PDF files are 508 compliant for users with disabilities. Do you have to open each file and change it one at a time?

Fortunately, the answer is no. You can use the Action Wizard in Foxit PDF Editor Pro to create actions that do most of the work for you.

First, what is a 508 compliant document?

Accessibility is often the first step in creating a user-friendly document. This involves adding a formal structure to documents, including alternative text for images, using descriptive text for tables, tagging documents appropriately and many other requirements that are similar to the ones found on this checklist.

How to check if your PDF files are 508 compliant

You can use the Full Check command to check whether a PDF is compliant with accessibility standards of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 by choosing Accessibility > Accessibility Checker > Full Check.

Use the Foxit PDF Editor Pro Action Wizard to automate compliancy

Actions let you apply a sequence of commands to one or more files. There’s no scripting required.

You can use the Action Wizard to automatically make your PDFs accessible by automating tasks such as auto-tagging your document, setting alternative text for images, and checking the reading order.

In fact, many of the most common accessibility actions are available as predefined actions in the Foxit PDF Editor Pro Action Wizard. You simply create an action that includes all the tasks to be applied to the PDFs, and then run the action to process the PDFs in a single step.

Here’s all you do.

1. Choose Action Wizard in the File tab, and click Create New Action > Create. The Create New Action dialog box appears.

2. By default, the current open file will be the file processed by the action.

3. Choose the tools needed for your Accessibility tasks from the left column and add them to the right column. You can reorder the tasks by clicking Move Up/Down or delete a task by clicking Remove. The tasks will be executed in the order you set.

4. For some tasks, you can predefine options by clicking Specify Settings.

5. Some tasks may enable you to check Prompt User so that you’ll be prompted to select options or specify settings when running the action.

6. Click Save.

7. Name the action and input the description for the action in the dialog box. Then click OK.

Using Action Wizard can help you toward not only achieving section 508 compliance in your PDFs but doing it in the most efficient, least time-consuming way. And if you need 508 compliance at scale, contact us. We have enterprise-level solutions for automating accessibility.