Document Accessibility

Accessibility requirements for state and local government websites, including PDFs and Word documents, are primarily governed by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. These laws and the revised Section 508 Standards mandate that public entities provide equal access to information and services for individuals with disabilities, and this extends to digital content, including PDF and Word documents.

On April 24, 2024, the Federal Register published the Department of Justice’s (Department) final rule updating its regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The final rule has specific requirements about how to ensure that web content and mobile applications (apps) are accessible to people with disabilities. Here is a link to the most recent fact sheet regarding this update.

Educational Resources

• Creating Accessible Content (Section508.gov)
• PDF Accessibility Explanation (WebAIM)
• Word and PowerPoint Accessibility Evaluation Checklist (WebAIM)
• PDF Accessibility Overview (Adobe)
• What is an accessible PDF? (Adobe)

Existing (past) Documents

IN.gov relies on a Quality Assurance and Accessibility tool to periodically scan all IN.gov sites and report back any issues discovered. This is the best and easiest way to uncover any existing documents with accessibility issues.

For realtime discovery, you can refer to these resources:

• For PDFs: Adobe Acrobat Pro instructions (Adobe)
  • Note, you will need Adobe Acrobat Pro. This is not a free application.
• For Word Documents: Microsoft Word instructions (Microsoft)

Creating (new) Documents

When creating new documents, it is very important to ensure that they are compliant before you publish them on IN.gov.

Here are resources for creating documents that are compliant:

• For PDFs:
  • Creating accesible PDFs (Adobe)
  • Create accessible PDFS (Section508.gov)
• For Word Documents:
  • Creating accessible Office Documents (Microsoft)
  • Create accessible Documents (Section508.gov)

Requesting Assistance

If you need help getting your documents to be accessible, IN.gov can help. Please use the form link below to submit a help request and someone from the IN.gov team will reach out to scope out the work involved.

Request Document Accessibility Help