Section 508 PDF Checker - Test PDF Against Revised 508 Standards

Section 508 for documents, briefly

Since January 2018 the Revised Section 508 Standards have required federal electronic content to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA. Provision E205.4 is the one that brings PDFs and other documents into scope. Federal agencies must comply directly, and most federal contracts pass the same requirement to suppliers, often asking for an Accessibility Conformance Report built on the VPAT template.

Using this report in a 508 review

Each automated result cites E205.4 and the matching WCAG 2.0 criterion, so findings can go straight into the electronic documents section of an ACR. The manual items at the end line up with tests that the federal Trusted Tester process does by hand, such as checking reading order and whether alt text is meaningful.

Note the version. Section 508 points to WCAG 2.0, not 2.1 or 2.2. Some newer criteria, such as Reflow, are not 508 requirements, though meeting them does no harm.

Why documents get sent back

These are the problems that most often get a deliverable returned. Each appears as its own rule in the report, with a fix beside it:

• The PDF is untagged, usually because it came from "Print to PDF" or a scanner.
• Images, charts and scanned signatures have no alternate text.
• Tables have no header cells.
• Fillable form fields have no tooltip, so a screen reader announces each one as just "edit text".
• The document title and language are not set.
• Security settings stop screen readers from reading the text.