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Using Word's Properties to flow into a more accessible PDF

From Swarthmore Knowledge Base

Creating accessible PDFs can be difficult and tedious. However, one easy way to improve your PDF's accessibility is to make your source document as accessible as it can be before converting it to PDF. If you've authored your material in Word, you can use any save function to convert a .docx to a PDF and carry over many accessible properties of the Word file.

Before you convert the Word file, make sure you've set a metadata title and the document's language. While these alone don't make an entirely compliant PDF, they are important accessibility features.

Follow the instructions below for Microsoft Office 365. Other versions of Word may have similar steps.

Identify the Title in Properties

Mac

  1. Go to File, then Properties.
  2. Select the Summary tab.
  3. In the Title field, give your file a brief but descriptive title (e.g., Exam 2 Study Guide).
  4. Click OK and save the document.

Windows

  1. Go to File, then Info.
  2. Find the Properties section.
  3. In the Title field, give your file a brief but descriptive title (e.g., Exam 2 Study Guide).
  4. Save the document.

Identify the Language

Overall

To identify the language you most often write and edit in, follow these steps:

  1. Open Word.
  2. Go to File, then Options.
  3. Choose Language from the sidebar.
  4. In the Office authoring languages and proofing section, ensure your preferred language appears in the list. If it doesn't, click the Add a Language... button, locate the language from the list, and click Add.
  5. Click OK. You may need to restart Word for the change to take effect.

Now your Word documents will default to the language you selected.

Mac or Windows

To set the language of a particular document, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the Review tab.
  2. Click on Language.
  3. Choose Set proofing language and make your selection.
  4. Click OK.

If you have specific sections of text in different languages, select that text and indicate the language using the steps above for just that selection.

See also Add an editing or authoring language or set language preferences in Office (Microsoft Support).

Convert the More Accessible File to PDF (If You Must)

There are multiple ways to convert a Word document to PDF that will retain accessibility features, such as the metadata title and language you set. The following method is the one we recommend. These instructions are for Word 365 for Windows, but other versions of Word will be similar.

  1. Go to File, then Save As.
  2. Under the file name, select PDF from the dropdown menu.
  3. Set some options to retain as many accessibility features as possible. You will only need to do this once.
    1. Click on More options...
    2. In the Save As dialog box, click the Options... button.
    3. Under “Include non-printing information,” check all options.
    4. Click OK.
  4. Click Save.

Note: PDF is not the most accessible format; even if you make your source file accessible before converting to PDF, there are typically additional steps that must be taken in Acrobat Pro to make a PDF accessible. We recommend distributing your source file rather than a PDF, if possible.

Common Pitfalls

  • Thinking that the file name is the title.
  • Printing to PDF instead of saving as a PDF.

Resources for PDF Accessibility

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