Accessible Documents

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Accessible, barrier-free documents: What, why, when?

A brief overview.

June 28, 2025 is the key date: the German implementation of the European Accessibility Act no longer only will apply to authorities and public institutions, as before, but also to the private sector. Initially to e-commerce and in the following years to other sectors. The only exception: micro-enterprises with fewer than 10 employees and a turnover of two million euros.

The aim of the law is to enable blind and visually impaired people to fully participate in society. Of course, this includes commercial activities. It requires the provision of documents in formats that are accessible to these people – for example with the help of screen readers.

However, not every document can be read by screen readers in a meaningful way. In order for this to work, headings must be structured and tagged in a way that makes sense, meaningful images and graphics must be provided with alternative texts and non-meaningful elements must be declared as decorative. Although the primary goal is readability by screen readers, readability for people who are visually impaired but not blind must also be ensured. Contrasts should be clear and fonts easy to read.

Fortunately, you don’t have to invest a lot of time familiarising yourself with the topic. Our translation agency knows all the requirements and is happy to implement them for you.

What does it cost to create
barrier-free documents?

Just to give you a rough idea.

The price for creating an accessible PDF depends on the amount of work required. This varies depending on the complexity, quality and size of the original file. It also depends on how much meta information needs to be added, for example in the case of images. In addition, it is usually more time-consuming to make form fields and tables accessible than to adjust or change the heading structure of a document, for example. As the work requires both graphic and textual understanding and skill, only experienced and appropriately trained experts are allowed to work on these projects. As a rule, we charge 70 euros* per hour (plus VAT).

Why accessible documents are important

For people with a visual impairment. For society. For companies.

According to official figures, at least 500 thousand visually impaired and blind people are living in Germany. However, the criteria for visual impairment are particularly strict in this country. If you compare the population data with European data, it is more likely that there are over one million visually impaired people in Germany. And the trend is rising.

Many people don’t realise that the majority of those affected are not born with a visual impairment. Particularly in people over 65, vision often deteriorates to such an extent that glasses can no longer compensate. This poses new challenges not only for those affected, but also for society and companies. On the one hand, the population is ageing. Consequently, the proportion of the population with a visual impairment is also increasing. On the other hand, people are retiring later. Thus, the proportion of employees with a visual impairment is increasing as well..

Accordingly, there are three reasons why companies should make their communication and documents accessible.

  1. Inclusion: The aim is to make it easier for visually impaired and blind people to participate in society by removing unnecessary barriers.
  2. Law: While the German implementation of the European Accessibility Act initially applied to public institutions only, from 2025 on it will apply to e-commerce as well and then increase its scope gradually. Those who familiarise themselves with the requirements and ensure compliance now will be legally future-proof.
  3. Cost-effectiveness: In a corporate setting, it rarely is enough to simply distribute a few templates. Switching to accessibility may require adjusting or changing processes, training employees, etc. Those who implement the necessary changes now will avoid chaos and a lack of compliance later on. It usually is more lucrative to be a pioneer than a latecomer, after all. You remain attractive to talented people and offer your employees a safe working environment, even if and when their physical abilities change. Lastly, making your e-commerce documents accessible increases market reach as well.

Are your documents barrier-free?

PAC 2021 will check your PDF.

The PDF/UA Foundation is dedicated to promoting accessibility on the internet. Its free PAC 2021 software can be used to check whether a PDF is barrier-free according to two different international standards: PDF/UA and WCAG.

The programme not only offers a helpful overview that shows the type and scope of problems with a PDF, but also various detailed views that enable efficient troubleshooting. The logical structure of the document can be grasped at a glance, as can the accessibility criteria that are already fulfilled or not.

Although the Microsoft Office programmes (see below) also allow PDFs to be checked for accessibility, their analysis does not always provide the same results. One disadvantage of PAC and similar software is that the tools also display errors that in practice do not really restrict the accessibility of the documents. It takes experience to distinguish the important from the irrelevant error messages. In addition, many semantic and graphical aspects of accessibility currently cannot be checked at all by these programmes.

In short: some problems are not displayed and some problems that are displayed are not problems. We therefore recommend using PAC 2021 only as a supplement. Checking with Adobe Acrobat Pro is often more realistic, but it’s not perfect either. A human evaluation of the error messages remains absolutely essential. Our specially trained employees are happy to do this for you.

A problem with accessible documents

Target groups are not homogeneous.

Unfortunately, complete accessibility of all documents for all people is rarely realisable. Not because there is a lack of will to implement it, but because it is impossible in practice. The legislator knows this too. The very name “Barrierefreiheits-stärkungsgesetz” (the German implementation of the European Accessibility Act) suggests that the aim is to improve accessibility, not to realise it completely. But why? What is the problem? The short answer is that the people in question are not a homogeneous group.

In order to make documents accessible to blind people, the documents must be readable by screen readers. However, this is of little help to people with a visual impairment such as colour-blindness, as they generally do not use screen readers. For colour-blind people it would be more important to ensure sufficient contrast and comunicate everything that is communicated by way of colours in other ways as well – for example by using bold print.

People with reading difficulties or non-native readers, on the other hand, benefit more from simple expressions, shorter, less convoluted sentences, etc. Keyword: easy language.

Due to this diversity of requirements, it usually is not possible to fulfil all the requirements of different target groups at the same time. In practice, talk about accessibility focuses on documents that are suitable for screen readers. Accordingly, PAC 2021 and similar test programmes almost exclusively check factors that influence readability by screen readers.

Nevertheless, people with various visual impairments or reading and learning disabilities should not simply be ignored. Accessibility can often be significantly improved for these groups with just a few clicks, even if not completely established. It is worth reviewing your documents and then considering what is feasible within the project parameters.

Accessibility in Microsoft Office

With the business standard to the standard for all.

Excel, PowerPoint and Word all allow you to check files for accessibility. Even if the target document is a PDF, it is worth checking whether or to what degree the original file is accessible while you are working on it. Errors can be corrected more quickly there than later in a PDF editor such as Adobe Acrobat. You can find the function in the “Review” tab:

Important: If a document passes these tests, this does not guarantee that all EU accessibility criteria have been met. Even the latest software only checks some of the criteria, such as those specified by DIN ISO 14289 in combination with ISO 32000. Nevertheless, you can identify and avoid many violations while you are creating content so that a human reviewer can later focus on technical problems that cannot be solved directly in MS Office, as well as on graphical and semantic problems.

Our service: A contribution to accessibility

From the source file to a barrier-free document.

Do you need an accessible version of your documents? Then we recommend sending us both the current PDF version and the source file.

The reason: it usually is most efficient to make initial adjustments to the original document. This is much quicker than laboriously setting up new document structures and tags in Adobe Acrobat, for example. However, Word & Co quickly reach their limits. Word, for example, can only create simple tables correctly without barriers. For more complex tables, it is rarely possible to avoid revising them in Adobe Acrobat Pro. The same applies to buttons and forms.

Still, we can save time and money by editing the source file. In Acrobat, we focus on and solve the tricky problems that cannot be solved in the original format.

Our core expertise as a translation agency is certainly translation. However, as a full-service agency, we also offer many related services, such as DTP work, subtitling and the creation of accessible documents.

Our aim is to make your life as easy as possible. Do you have a brochure that needs to be translated? Then we not only deliver the translated text, but also the fully translated brochure including all graphic adjustments. There is no need to go back and forth between different departments or suppliers.

We will be happy to review your documents, advise you and make you an offer. If you are happy with it, we will get to work immediately. Let’s create world accessible to everyone.

Accessibility training

In order to create accessible documents professionally, you need to be as familiar with both legal requirements and technology. That’s why we train our employees on a regular basis. For example, one of our in-house graphic artists completed a comprehensive training for Adobe InDesign and Acrobat Pro. We can also recommend Silta, a company that offers excellent accessibility training we well.
Das Zertifikat für eine Schulung "Barrierefreie PDF/UA-Dokumente mit Adobe InDesign und Acrobat Pro DC"
Die Inhalte einer einer Schulung "Barrierefreie PDF/UA-Dokumente mit Adobe InDesign und Acrobat Pro DC"
Personal Consultation
Are you interested in an offer for the creation of accessible documents? Then give us a call. Our PMs will be happy to advise you.
Email Request
Do you have a question about accessibility? Just send us a short message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Request form
Would you like a quote for the creation of barrier-free documents? Click here for the enquiry.​
Enquire now!

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This site is protected by reCAPTCHA. Thus, the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service also apply.

Your free quote

Do you have questions about the accessibility of your PDF files or would you like to request a quote?
Wonderful! Our project managers will be happy to advise you.

Personal Consultation
Are you interested in an offer for the creation of accessible documents? Then give us a call. Our PMs will be happy to advise you.
Email Request
Do you have a question about accessibility? Just send us a short message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Request form
Would you like a quote for the creation of barrier-free documents? Click here for the enquiry.
Enquire now!