Individuals are increasingly becoming dependent on electronic documents nowadays due to the popularity of digital media. Every organization depends largely on the usage of files, including task details, policies, and everything about the company. And PDF is the file format ruling the current digital world. Companies expect their clients, employees, or customers to be able to present everything easily in this format.
With the increasing popularity of this format, there are still some individuals who find it challenging to interact with and access these documents. Here we have come up with the top 9 benefits of pdf accessibility. Without any ado, find out how making pdf accessible can help your business organization.
Grow your brand
Always be a good leader in the corporate sector. Make your organization inclusive, as it will protect your brand. This will also make it easy for people with disabilities to access several pieces of information due to assistive technology. Software and devices in the assistive technology include screen readers, text-to-speech software, screen magnifiers, refreshable Braille displays, and speech-recognition software.
Meet government regulations
Internet usage has become widespread across the globe, which has given rise to web accessibility rules. Many countries have now included web accessibility rules into existing civil rights legislation to make internet access easy for people with disabilities. Digital documents and websites should be easily accessible to everyone, including individuals with disabilities. It makes web accessibility and pdf accessibility training all the more important to the people working in any organization. Because it helps create an inclusive environment for both your employees and customers/clients/users.
Better user experience
Users like to visit websites with documents that are well-formatted with headings and subheadings and follow a logical hierarchy. When you start reformatting the PDF files present in your website, update its content to make it more relevant. Take steps to make the content more usable for a better user experience. For instance – Structure the document properly so that anyone who sees the pdf on a small screen like a mobile will be able to see it properly. All in all, smooth pdf accessibility ensures a better user experience.
Data protection
Making PDFs accessible means you are securely opening the way to send information that might contain any personal data. You can encrypt the pdf files to let only authorized individuals access the PDF. Furthermore, you can also password-protect these files for an extra layer of security. Nowadays, putting electronic signatures on PDF files has also been the trend that helps in the verification of the authenticity of the sender and the documents.
Take up less space
PDF files take less space on your hard drive as compared to other file formats. It is extremely helpful if you want to upload large files to a website or send them through email. You can compress them tremendously to send them electronically to save up space. They open faster and are more portable.
Avoid litigation
Digital accessibility lawsuits have seen exponential growth since 2020. And these are expected to rise in the near future. To protect your organization from such cases, make your website’s Pdf documents accessibility poof and comply with the legal requirements of web accessibility. It will help your organization steer clear of any litigation.
Competitive edge
Online marketplace is seeing fierce competition. So, it is your responsibility to make your business and website stand out from everyone. Providing an inclusive and user-friendly experience to your audience gives you a competitive edge over others. Thus, put in special effort to make the documents and website easily accessible to people with disabilities too and gain a competitive advantage.
Supports non-text elements
PDF format supports all types of content, including embedded media. It is considered superior to even the formats like RTF or TXT. So, it is always worth using PDFs for images, text, graphs, and watermarks, to name a few. It gives you yet another reason to make PDFs accessible.
Increases the understanding and readability
According to the place you live in, nearly 26-33% of your target audience might have some form of disability like low vision or something which creates difficulty for them in reading the content on your website. It makes things all the more difficult if your website has non-accessible PDF documents. So, making your website PDF accessible means you are increasing its readability which in turn makes it easy for the audience to understand the PDF documents.
To make a long story short.
PDF accessibility forms a significant part of any website. Whether the pdf includes receipts, brochures, or invoices, the information in them should be accessible to the person who requires it, even to individuals with disabilities. Keep the above-mentioned benefits in mind while designing your business’s website or improving it and create an amazing user experience for everyone visiting the website.
