There are many types of PDF remediation software. We decided to use Equidox and are happy with our decision. First, we are software testers also and they were happy when we told them about some software bugs and fixed them during a recent upgrade. There are always software bugs to find, and their willingness to resolve these issues was essential to us in selecting a vendor.

As a best practice for PDF accessibility remediation software services, we ask our customers to provide the PDFs to be remediated. This ensures that all the desired fonts are configured correctly. Often clients create a document with many individuals contributing to the finished project, so it is not unusual for the text to change during the remediation process, even though we cannot change the documents once the remediation is done.

Once we receive the document, we import the document into the PDF remediation software. The software provides several options: Home, Import documents, Notifications for when documents are ready to export, Settings, Help, and Sign Out. The settings feature creates groups and labels for the documents. Different groups are used for different clients. Documents can be found by sorting on different fields such as imported data, the date, the owner of the document, the filing date, or the label created in the settings.

Sometimes there is an incompatibility in the document being remediated and it seems the remediation does not work. As accessibility testers certified by DHS, we can determine if the remediation software is the issue or if the document itself has an issue that will need to be fixed by the client so that the remediation can continue to the professional output.

There is also a help screen to explain additional features. Equidox does have additional tools that are not a part of the base software package. Below is an example of the bug report we sent to our contact for an advanced feature. We also recorded a video so that they could see the details described in the bug report.

00:00, Launch page

01:16, Make sure that the source is custom

01:18, make sure the custom text matches the text in the pdf until the first link

01:26, make new zones for text between the links and after the second link

01:58, make sure the custom text for the text zones and link zones match what is in the respective chunk of the pdf

02:55, Click "preview this page"

02:58, BUG: the text is broken up between text and links as all separate lines in Accessible Export Preview

03:07, go back to the editor

03:08, merge the zones to make them be the same line

03:21, click "preview this page"

03:24, BUG: the text zones after the first link do not render, and links are together on the same line as the footer image in Accessible Export Preview

Desired Result

• Content should all render on the same line if merged

Actual Result

• Accessible export preview is inaccessible due to Content that does not stay on the same line and if merged, only shows the first zone, and the links render on separate lines

During the remediation process we ensure that alt text is provided for all meaningful images. Decorative images should have blank alt text. We can then export our document and confirm that all issues have been successfully remediated. We further check the final remediated document to confirm it looks correct and reads correctly with Screen Reading software such as JAWS.