PDFs
Your PDFs, readable by every resident
Agendas, minutes, notices and forms are usually PDFs, and residents need them most.
Read and translate on your site
A visitor opens a linked PDF and reads it as plain text, listens to it, or translates it. $0.07 per page once, plus $0.05 per page for each language. It works with your translation widget, with no extra setup.
Fix a PDF file
Upload a PDF and get back a fixed copy with built-in structure (tags) that screen readers can follow. $0.50 per page, and your first 10 pages are free.
Why PDFs are the hard part
Meeting agendas, minutes, permit applications, notices and forms are mostly PDFs, and they are the documents residents need most. A PDF can fail two ways. It may be in English only, so a resident who reads another language cannot use it. Or it may be a picture of a page with no structure, so a screen reader cannot read it. A translate widget that only handles page text covers neither. See what agencies say about translate widgets and PDFs.
What fixing a PDF means
Remediation is the work of making a PDF accessible. It adds tags that label headings, lists and tables, sets the reading order, adds descriptions for images, and sets the document title and language. We build that structure so a screen reader can follow the document. The target is the PDF/UA standard, which is how most PDF accessibility checks are done, and the WCAG 2.1 AA standard that the ADA Title II web rule adopts.
We test our results against the PDF/UA accessibility standard with an open checker (veraPDF). Some documents, such as complex diagrams or poor scans, still need a person to review them. We do not certify that a document or a website complies with the law.
Which PDFs need it
The ADA Title II web rule covers PDFs that a state or local government posts on its website, with some narrow exceptions for older documents. The compliance dates are April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 people or more and April 26, 2028 for smaller ones. Read which PDFs Title II requires you to fix, and see the dates in one place.
What it costs
Fixing a PDF file is $0.50 per page, and your first 10 pages are free. Opening a PDF in the Document Reader is $0.07 per page once, and translating it is $0.05 per page for each language, once. See what PDF remediation costs for a worked example, or pricing to estimate your own.