Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Checker vs Includoc

Adobe's accessibility checker is the Accessibility Checker built into Adobe Acrobat Pro. It runs a set of rules against an open PDF, groups them into seven categories (Document, Page content, Forms, Alternate text, Tables, Lists and Headings) and marks each rule Passed, Failed or Needs manual check. It's a solid first pass and part of a capable editing toolkit. But it doesn't test the full PDF/UA standard (ISO 14289-1, the international standard for accessible PDFs), it can't judge meaning, and it leaves most of the fixing to you. This page explains how it works, where it falls short and how Includoc compares.

How Acrobat's checker works

The checker is part of Acrobat Pro's accessibility tools, and it runs only in the desktop app. The free Acrobat Reader doesn't include it. To run it:

• Newer versions: All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Check for accessibility.
• Older versions: Tools > Accessibility > Full Check.

A dialog lets you choose which categories of rules to run, which pages to check and whether to create a report. Results appear in the Accessibility Checker panel. Right-click any rule to choose:

• Fix: Acrobat fixes the item itself, or opens a dialog that helps you fix it.
• Skip Rule: leave the rule out of future checks of this document.
• Explain: open Adobe's help for that rule.
• Check Again: run the checker again.
• Show Report: open a report with tips for fixing failed rules.
• Options: choose which rules run.

The rules, by category

What the results mean

• Passed: the machine test for that rule found no problem. It doesn't mean the content is accessible. Alt text that just says "image" passes Figures alternate text.
• Failed: the rule found a problem. Acrobat can fix a few failures itself, such as the title, the language, the tab order, bookmarks and missing tags (the hidden structure that tells screen readers what each part is). Most failures need hand work in the Tags panel, the Reading Order tool or the Table Editor.
• Needs manual check: Acrobat can't test the rule, so a person has to. Logical Reading Order and Color contrast are reported this way for every file, so even a well-made PDF shows them. This status confuses many people who are new to the checker.
• Skipped by user: you turned the rule off.

What it does well

• It's already on many desks. Plenty of offices license Acrobat Pro for other reasons, so there may be nothing new to buy or approve.
• One-click fixes for document settings, such as the title, language, tab order and bookmarks.
• A full editing toolkit. The Tags panel, Reading Order tool, Table Editor and alternate text tool are the same tools professional remediators use every day.
• Help is built in. Explain links each rule to Adobe's documentation.
• It runs on your own computer, on Windows or Mac. Recent versions also offer an optional cloud-based auto-tagging feature for eligible files.

Where it falls short

• Desktop software, licensed per person. Everyone who checks or fixes files needs a paid Acrobat Pro subscription. The checker is built around one file at a time: batch work means setting up Acrobat's Action Wizard, and there's no way to inventory the documents on your website.
• "Needs manual check" doesn't tell you how to check. The two manual items appear on every file, and the checker offers no guided way to complete them.
• It doesn't test the full PDF/UA standard. Several requirements that PAC and veraPDF test aren't among Acrobat's rules. They include role mapping of custom tags, embedded fonts, the PDF/UA identifier, figure bounding boxes and the scope of table header cells. A file can pass every Acrobat rule and still fail PAC.
• Presence, not quality. Most rules check that something exists: a title, alt text, a header cell. None can tell whether the alt text is accurate or the title meaningful. That's true of every automated checker, ours included, which is why we list those items for human review.
• The report speaks Acrobat, not WCAG. Results are organized by Acrobat's rule names rather than WCAG 2.1 success criteria, so turning them into evidence for WCAG 2.1 AA takes extra work.
• Fixing takes skill and time. Autotagging gives a starting point, but headings, reading order, tables and alt text usually need correcting by hand, and that takes training.

Where Includoc is different

• It runs in your browser. There's nothing to install, and the free check works on PDF, Word and PowerPoint files.
• Plain English, mapped to the standards. Each result is grouped by topic and mapped to WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria, PDF/UA-1 and the Matterhorn Protocol. It also shows the matching Acrobat and PAC messages, so you can line results up with the tools you already use.
• Honest status. Every item is marked Passed (machine-checked), Needs review or Failed, and review items come with guidance on what to look for.
• It fixes automatically. Tags, lists, table structure, links, form field tags, tab order, title, language and bookmarks are fixed for you, and we set a column-aware reading order. Our AI drafts alt text and suggests heading levels and table headers, and you confirm those, and the reading order, on a review screen. Then we run the checks again.
• Proof you can hand on. A conformance report lists what was machine-checked and what a person confirmed.
• Built for organizations. Organization plans add a website document inventory, monitoring of new uploads, exemption tracking and board reports.

What Includoc isn't is a full PDF editor. If you want to hand-edit every tag, Acrobat Pro is still the right tool, and the two work well together.

Side by side

Using both

A practical workflow: run Includoc first to fix the bulk of a document and work through the review items. Then open the result in Acrobat Pro if you want to fine-tune anything by hand, and cross-check it in PAC. Acrobat will still show Needs manual check for reading order and color contrast. That's expected, and our review checklist covers both. For how PAC fits in, see PAC vs Includoc, and for the full process, read How to make a PDF accessible.

Check a PDF free to see your results in plain English, or compare pricing.

Sources

• Adobe: Create and verify PDF accessibility (Acrobat Pro) (opens another website)
• PDF Association: The Matterhorn Protocol (opens another website)
• ISO: ISO 14289-1:2014, PDF/UA-1 (opens another website)