Guides
Guides for clerks and web teams
Plain answers on document accessibility and language access for cities, counties and agencies. General information, not legal advice.
Rules and deadlines
Which PDFs does ADA Title II require you to fix?
What the ADA Title II web rule means for PDFs on a city or county site: the April 2027 and April 2028 dates, the narrow exceptions, and how to triage a backlog.
Accessibility and language access deadlines for public agencies
One page for the dates that matter to a public agency's website: the ADA Title II web rule, the HHS Section 504 rule, and the 2025 changes to federal language access guidance.
PDFs
How to translate a PDF and keep it accessible
A translated PDF still has to work with a screen reader. How to start from an accessible source, set the language, and check the result before you publish.
Accessible meeting agendas and packets for city clerks
A practical workflow for clerks: build agendas accessibly, handle exhibits and scanned pages, add an accessibility notice, and check packets before they go on the website.
How much does PDF remediation cost?
What agencies are quoted for PDF accessibility remediation, what drives the price, a worked example, and the questions to ask any vendor.
Translation
Does the Google Translate widget translate PDFs?
Agencies that use a translate widget say it does not cover PDFs, images or graphics. What that means for residents, and four ways to cover your documents.
A machine translation disclaimer for your website
What government translation disclaimers say, a plain-language template you can adapt, and where to put it. Not legal advice.
Reference
PDF accessibility checklist for WCAG 2.1 AA and PDF/UA
A printable checklist for checking a PDF against WCAG 2.1 AA and PDF/UA: tags, reading order, headings, tables, images, links, language and forms.
Language access and PDF accessibility glossary
Plain definitions of the terms clerks and web teams meet: LEP, vital document, tagged PDF, PDF/UA, WCAG 2.1 AA, remediation, OCR and more.