For displaying data in visually appealing ways outside of an application, PDFs may be offered as supplementary throughout the different Watemark products.
We are aware of accessibility issues with PDF output, which is an industry-wide concern and a unique challenge of this document type. We have outlined below how we are approaching this issue at Watermark and some recommendations for ensuring all users at your institution have an accessible experience when interacting with PDFs generated by our products.
PDFs in our Products
After conducting thorough investigations and consulting industry experts, we have found that none of the generators we have explored produce satisfactory, accessible PDF output natively. Some get closer than others, but PDFs are known to require some modification using remediation tools to add tags, fix incorrectly applied tags, and resolve all issues to create a fully accessible and usable PDF.
- Inadequately accessible PDFs are an industry-wide issue and have resulted in final recommendations to always provide PDF alternatives, add additional markup/tags to PDFs manually, or avoid PDFs where possible.
- Watermark’s focus will be on ensuring that there is always an accessible on-screen presentation of the data and/or an accessible output option and PDFs are supplementary.
- Watermark will continue to work on ensuring PDFs generated by our products get as close as technologically possible to being accessible but the need for some additional tagging is anticipated to continue.
- Please see our ACRs/VPATs for specific details on the accessibility of PDFs generated by our various products.
Making PDFs Accessible
It is important that PDFs posted publicly or relied upon as part of a critical process for multiple users are accessible. Numerous colleges, universities, and governments all recommend and provide steps for remediation of PDFs.
We recommend the following approaches as steps towards ensuring an accessible experience for users:
-
Providing accessible PDFs by testing and repairing to ensure proper tags
- Providing accessible PDFs upon Request: You can provide accessible PDFs upon request to specific users when requested by tagging the document using Adobe DC, PDFix, or PAC 2026 or similar tools. Instructions are found on the Section 508 website or through the tool provider. In many cases, it is only necessary to add missing tags and/or ensure tags that are added by the generator within a product are appropriate.
- Ensuring any publicly posted PDF has been tested and made accessible by appropriately tagging the document (see above).
- If you require assistance in creating batches of these for users who need them, our professional services team is available to help upon request with adequate notice. Please Submit a Request should you need assistance.
- Alternative Output Options: Where available, we encourage the use of alternative output formats such as on-screen HTML or Word.
- Given the prevalence of PDF output, not just from Watermark systems, we also recommend providing resources to your user community about PDF accessibility proactively in case they need information about how to markup a file or obtain an accessible alternative.
More Resources:
ADA.gov Use of Conforming Alternate Versions
Penn State PDF Recommendations
Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading
PDF Testing and Repair with PDFix (Mac)
PDF Testing and Repair with PAC 2026 (Windows)