InDesign Accessibility

Summary

When designing web content in InDesign, follow these steps to ensure your PDF export is as accessible as possible.

Body

Relevant to: faculty, staff, and students

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Accessibility Settings for InDesign

When designing web content in InDesign, follow these steps to ensure your PDF export is as accessible as possible. You will still need to do some PDF remediation in Acrobat Pro, but only begin remediation when you have your final design and no additional changes are needed. If you optimize your InDesign file first using these steps, you will have less remediation work to do in Acrobat Pro.

  1. Make sure you have all the paragraph styles set and the text assigned to a paragraph style. To set/update the paragraph, select the plus button in the bottom right of the panel or double click the existing style. 

    Screenshot of InDesign paragraph style setting, highlighting the plus button to set or update the paragraph.
     
  2. In the paragraph style options, update the style name and then select export tagging.

    Screenshot of paragraph style options in InDesign, highlighting where to update the style name and where to select export tagging.
     
  3. In the export tagging option, make sure the Tag is correct, select the include class in HTML button and in the PDF section select the correct tag.

    Screenshot of paragraph style options in InDesign, highlighting the export tagging section which shows a paragraph ā€œpā€ tag. Include class in HTML button is checked.
     
  4. To add any alt text, right click on the image and select object export options.

    Screenshot of inDesign with the right click menu open. Select object export options is highlighted.
     
  5. Under alt text, select custom alt text source and then type in your alt text.

    Screenshot of object export options in InDesign, highlighting the alt text tab and the setting alt text source: custom. The sample alt text reads SUNY Empire Orange.
     
  6. When you finish the steps above, export the file to an interactive PDF. Ensure the following options are selected: include all, embed page thumbnails, create tagged PDF, and use structure for tab order.

    Screenshot of export to interactive PDF setting in InDesign, highlighting the options section, with the following buttons checked: include all, embed page thumbnails, create tagged PDF, and use structure for tab order.
     
  7. Open the final PDF in Acrobat Pro. View the tags panel and verify that the tags are present, accurate, and logical. It is also a good idea to run the accessibility checker. For more information, visit: Edit Tags in Acrobat Pro (opens in a new window).

 

Details

Details

Article ID: 11343
Created
Wed 10/29/25 4:00 PM
Modified
Thu 10/30/25 9:51 AM