In order to help people with disabilities, Adobe Systems announced the launch of the automatic marking PDF function in Acrobat Pro and Acrobat Reader, which will also be provided to developers through APIs.
Adobe said that users can embed metadata in PDF files, and people with disabilities can use assistive tools such as screen readers to grasp structural information such as headings, paragraphs, lists, and tables.
But users marking digital documents for compatibility can take a long time, especially for documents with complex layouts. It is also a time-consuming process for organizations with a backlog of old files that lack proper metadata. Adobe Systems estimates that over 90% of PDF files cannot be read by people with disabilities.
Adobe has been able to automate the tagging process by introducing the Accessibility Auto-Tag API.
The company says its software based on the Sensei AI platform shows the correct reading order for assistive technologies, saving the company time and, more importantly, making PDFs more accessible to people with disabilities.
Auto-tagging will be available in Acrobat Pro in June, providing all subscribers with automatic in-app metadata structuring at no additional cost. This feature will also be available in Acrobat Reader in the fall.
