Providing for Accessibility

Acrobat has added accessibility functions to make using Acrobat easier for vision- and motor-challenged people. The features added include the capability of reading out loud, visibility, autoscrolling, keyboard shortcuts, and the capability to create accessible PDF documents.

The Read Out Loud settings are found in Acrobat's preferences. You can set the volume, voice type, pitch, words per minute, reading order, and screen reader options.

Visibility can be enhanced by changing the document's color options in the Accessibility area of Acrobat's Preferences. Other visual enhancements are to increase the magnification in the Default Zoom area of Page Display Preferences.

Under the View menu, you can set the page to automatically scroll. Use the number keys to control the scroll speed (9 being fast scrolling and 0 being slow scrolling).

You can also use the up and down arrows for autoscrolling. The right and left arrows take you to the next page and the previous page.

Memorizing keyboard shortcuts is always a great way to enhance your productivity, whether you have special needs or not.

By the Way

To make your PDF accessible, Acrobat creates a report on the accessibility of your file. Open the PDF that you want to make accessible, and choose Add Tags to Document under the Accessibility submenu of the Advanced menu. Before making your file accessible, you might want to run a quick check to see whether you need to fix any problems.