The following accessibility checkers are useful for maintaining 508 compliance across files, software, and platforms.
PDF Files
The Head Start Information and Communications Center currently uses the built-in accessibility checker that is part of Adobe Acrobat DC and the CommonLook PDF Validator, along with a thorough visual inspection of the PDF file to determine if it is 508-compliant. The accessibility checker in Acrobat DC is based on the newest revision of the Section 508 standards. The accessibility checker in older versions of Acrobat, such as Acrobat X or XI, should not be used as they are hard-coded to the older standards and will not give accurate results.
NOTE: While accessibility checkers are useful, they can’t find all errors and can be easily fooled. Therefore, receiving a Pass on the test simply means that one must follow up with a thorough manual inspection of the PDF, checking for accurate alternative text for every image along with proper and complete metadata and, most important, walking the tags tree by opening every tag to find and correct other issues that the checker did not catch.
Microsoft Office Files
The Accessibility Checker tool finds accessibility issues in your Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Outlook emails, and PowerPoint presentations.
Webpages
This tool checks single HTML pages for conformance with accessibility standards to ensure the content can be accessed by everyone.
Last Updated: March 11, 2024