ADA Compliance

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a U.S. civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities. While the ADA was enacted before widespread use of digital documents, its requirements apply to digital content, including PDFs.

This article explains how ADA compliance relates to digital documents and how accessibility requirements are evaluated.

What is ADA compliance

ADA compliance means ensuring that people with disabilities have equal access to goods, services, and information provided by covered organizations.

Under the ADA, this includes:

• Physical locations

• Websites and online services

• Digital documents distributed to the public or customers

Accessibility barriers in digital documents can result in discrimination under the ADA.

Who must comply with the ADA

The ADA applies to a broad range of organizations, including:

• Private businesses open to the public

• Educational institutions

• Healthcare providers

• State and local governments

• Nonprofit organizations

Any organization that provides information or services to the public may have ADA accessibility obligations.

How the ADA applies to digital documents

Although the ADA does not name specific technical standards, courts and enforcement agencies have consistently interpreted the law to include digital accessibility.

For digital documents such as PDFs, this means:

• Content must be usable by screen reader users

• Documents must be navigable by keyboard

• Information must not rely solely on visual presentation

• Structure and reading order must be logical

Documents that appear accessible visually may still create barriers for users with disabilities.

ADA and WCAG

In practice, WCAG is commonly used as the technical benchmark for ADA compliance.

WCAG defines accessibility success criteria that help determine whether digital content is accessible. However, WCAG does not explain how accessibility must be implemented in specific file formats such as PDFs.

As a result, additional standards and testing methods are used when evaluating document accessibility.

ADA compliance and PDFs

PDFs present unique accessibility challenges because they rely on internal structure rather than visual layout.

For PDFs to support ADA compliance, they typically must include:

• Proper tagging

• Logical reading order

• Correct heading structure

• Meaningful alternative text

• Accessible tables and forms

• Complete document metadata

Untagged or poorly structured PDFs frequently fail ADA accessibility reviews.

Common ADA accessibility issues in documents

Accessibility evaluations often identify issues such as:

• Missing or incorrect tags

• Improper reading order

• Images without alternative text

• Headings styled visually but not semantically

• Inaccessible tables or form fields

• Missing document language or metadata

These issues can prevent users from accessing or understanding document content.

How ADA document accessibility is evaluated

ADA compliance for documents is typically evaluated through a combination of automated checks and manual review.

Automated tools can identify some technical issues, but manual inspection and assistive technology testing are required to assess usability and real-world accessibility.

This approach is especially important for complex or long documents.

Conclusion

ADA compliance applies to digital documents, including PDFs. Organizations that distribute documents to the public or customers must ensure that content is accessible to people with disabilities.

Meeting ADA requirements for documents typically involves structured remediation, testing, and ongoing review to confirm accessibility.

Accessibility Testing Note

ADA-related document accessibility is commonly verified through accessibility testing that includes both technical review and assistive technology testing.