This week Robert Hardy, our district website accessibility specialist, shares about adding a title to a document. Please call Robert with any accessibility questions at Ext. 6105. He is more than happy to talk by phone or schedule a time to meet with you.

A common accessibility error in PDFs is a lack of a title tag. Screen reader users use title tags and other metadata much like the cover of a book – to get an understanding of a document at a glance.

This lack of a title tag is a particularly common occurrence because it is not flagged as an error in Microsoft’s accessibility checker.

That being said, adding a title is relatively straightforward and can become a regular step in an efficient workflow.

To add the title in Word before converting the document to PDF:

• Mac users: File > Properties > Summary > Title
• Windows users: File > Info > Title (on the right side of the screen, beneath Properties)

Users of Acrobat Pro may edit the title after converting to PDF, but revising it in Word is preferable as it saves an additional step and the source document can be reused. To revise the title in Acrobat Pro, go to File > Properties > Description > Title.

To learn more about creating accessible documents, please attend an accessibility workshop at the Knox Administrative Center. Attendees are invited to bring their own documents and work toward efficient accessible workflows. Upcoming workshop schedules may be found in the Spring Professional Development Catalog.