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The Portable Document Format: An Analysis of PDF Accessibility

Abstract:

Today, PDFs are frequently used as part of the preservation of historical documents in libraries, and they are also one of the most used formats on the web when sharing information. Unfortunately, most shared documents are not accessible, especially for users with disabilities. To solve this problem, we propose to relate accessibility techniques for PDF documents in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. As a case study, we have selected a random sample of 10 documents related to the modern architectural heritage of Quito. The authors applied a combined method to check accessibility in PDFs with the help of the PDF Accessibility Checker version 3.0, The results revealed that the accessibility barriers that are repeated in most documents are related to the content and the natural language of the analyzed PDFs. The analysis applied in this investigation can contribute to future works to generate more inclusive PDF documents.