Creating accessible PDFs – required programs

In the previous post you learned which Guidelines you must follow when creating accessible PDFs. In this article, you will learn more about the software you need and the costs if you want to create an accessible PDF yourself. If you want to save yourself the effort and time of acquiring all the necessary knowledge, you can also have barrier-free PDFs created by experts.

Basically, the creation of an accessible PDF is divided into 3 steps and there is separate software for each of these steps.

Step 1: Document creation

When creating documents, you should definitely use well-known software such as Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign. Only the well-known software enables proper export of accessible PDFs.

Microsoft Word

If we compare the two software, Word has the following advantages:

• almost everyone knows and owns this program
• it is much cheaper

Cost:
Microsoft Word cannot be purchased as a standalone software, but must be purchased as part of the entire Office Suite. The company offers the following licenses for this:

• Permanent license: ~150€ one-time
• Annual subscription: ~100€/year (private: Microsoft 365 Single) or ~170€/year (business: Microsoft 365 Business Standard)

InDesign

InDesign has the advantage over Microsoft Word that it offers even more design options than Word. However, it is important to know that this is usually a disadvantage for accessible PDFs. The more complex the design of the document, the more work is required afterwards to turn the low-barrier PDF into an accessible PDF.
Cost:

• Annual subscription: ~325€/year

Optional: axesWord

For Microsoft Word there is an add-in called axesWord. If you set up your Word document properly, you can use this add-in to export an accessible PDF directly. This eliminates the entire last step of time-consuming post-processing. This software can be particularly worthwhile for people who have to create an accessible PDF every now and then. As an axes4 partner, we are happy to support you in purchasing and setting up the software for the first time – please contact us.

Cost:

• Annual subscription: ~329€/year

Summary

Microsoft Word is best suited for document creation, as most people already have the program and it is extremely inexpensive to purchase. It may also be worth investing in the axesWord add-in if you need to create several accessible PDFs per year.

Microsoft Word from 100€/year (+ axesWord from 329€/year = approx. 429€/year)

Step 2: Accessibility Check

To check the accessibility of your PDF, you can use the free Accessibility Checker PAC 2024, which is provided by the company axes4. The PAC 2024 Checker checks criteria of the Matterhorn Protocol and is recognized not only by authorities in German-speaking countries, but internationally.

PAC 2024 from 0€/year

Step 3: Post-processing and fine-tuning

Thanks to the PAC 2024 Checker, you now know which properties you still need to fix in your document to make it accessible. Now you need suitable software for troubleshooting. Adobe Acrobat Pro is the PDF specialist par excellence and is best suited for this step. Please note that Acrobat also still has errors in its accessibility functions, as these functions are still relatively new and are constantly being developed. It can therefore sometimes be quite time-consuming to fix an error reported by PAC2024. An alternative to this is the program axesWord or axesPDF. This program fixes errors automatically with just a few mouse clicks. But the company also charges a lot for such functionality. With costs of around €600 per year, axesPDF is not an option for beginners in the field of accessible document creation. However, if you want to delve deeper into this world, purchasing the axesPDF license may make sense for you sooner or later.

Adobe Acrobat Pro from 290€/year (+ axesPDF from 549€/year = approx. 839€/year)

Conclusion

The total cost for the required software starts at around €390/year, but can easily rise to over €1,200/year if you also want to use professional tools such as axesPDF. To make it easier for you to get started in the world of accessible PDFs, you should make use of the free trial periods for Adobe software. Adobe currently offers a 7-day trial period for almost all software packages, so you won't incur any costs for at least the first 7 days. That should be enough time to acquire some basic knowledge in the world of accessible PDFs.

Please remember that in addition to the monetary costs, you will also have to expect an intensive investment of time. Unfortunately, creating accessible PDFs is still somewhat challenging, as there is relatively little documentation and some of the software still has a few errors. This website attempts to shed some light on this issue.

If all your questions regarding software and costs have been answered, please proceed directly to the Instructions for creating accessible PDFs continued.

If you have any further questions or decide that you would prefer to have your documents prepared by an expert, please feel free to contact me.