Accessible Crochet

PDFs

PDFs are the most common format to share a document online, and therefore the most prominent way people share documents in the crochet community. These documents can be fairly straightforward to make accessible through Adobe Acrobat Pro, which is a paid for Adobe service, so long as you started your document as a Word or Google Doc.

It should be noted that if you wan't to edit your PDF in some way, such as changing the color of a certain word, it is highly suggested that you do this editing in your Word or Google Doc. Do not edit the PDF. Editing PDFs causes several accessibility issues that will not be gone over in this quick lesson.

How are PDFs read by screen readers?

PDFs are organized in two different ways that work together, through the reading order panel and thorugh the tags panel. The Tags panel will label the content of a PDF with what kind of content it is (heading, paragraph, table, etc.). Screen Readers follow the order of Tags. The Reading Order panel is important though, because it tell screen readers the order in which to read content within tags.

Upsides of having your pattern be a PDF

• PDFs are for print, so this is a good format for people who like to print out their document
• PDFs can be accessed for free by various different apps including Adobe Reader, which is free, without making any kind of account
• You can lock your PDF so that people are unable to edit it when they get a copy and it can still be screen reader friendly

Downsides of having your pattern be a PDF

• You cannot make an accessible PDF without Adobe Acrobat Pro, which is a paid for Adobe service
• PDFs are made for print, so in their digital document form they can throw some really weird and difficult to fix errors