How do I know if my PDF is ADA compliant?
Updated
Run the machine checks first: is the document tagged, does it declare a language and title, do images carry alt text, does the text extract as real characters? Failing any of these fails accessibility outright. A free automated audit answers them in seconds; passing machine checks plus a sensible human read-through is the practical bar most documents need.
ADA document complaints almost always cite machine-detectable failures — an untagged file is unreadable to a screen reader regardless of finer points, and scanners find it in seconds.
Automated checks verify the objective layer (structure, metadata, alt-text presence, text integrity). Human judgment covers what machines can't: whether the reading order makes sense and whether alt text says something useful.
Practical workflow: audit free, fix the machine layer, spot-check the result with a screen reader or Acrobat's tag panel for high-stakes documents.