UC Berkeley is committed to making sure everything we do is accessible to everyone. This means that when you create forms using DocuSign, that no matter who is receiving them, they will be able to read the content of the document and are able to add their signature. Some members of our community need to access documents using access technology which may not work well with certain documents. By following the steps below, you can make sure that all your documents you send out using DocuSign can be easily read and signed by everyone. Once you have done the following steps you can upload your documents to DocuSign and DocuSign will make sure the user can read it and add their signature with whatever access technology they may be using.
If the document you wish to to send with DocuSign is already a PDF, the steps below should be used to check how accessible that document is. Please note that it is always much easier to use an original copy of the document created in Word or Google Docs and make that accessible first, than fixing a document after it is already a PDF.
Adobe Acrobat provides an automated way to check the accessibility of a PDF file. The Full Check feature in Acrobat checks a PDF for many of the characteristics of accessible PDFs. You can choose which accessibility problems to look for and how you want the results reported.
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Choose Tools > Accessibility (The Accessibility toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar.)
2. In the secondary toolbar, click Full Check. The Accessibility Checker Options dialog box is displayed.
3. In the Report Options section, select options for how you want to view the results. You can save the results as an HTML file on your system, or attach the results file to the document itself.
- Select a page range if you prefer to check individual pages of a document. Note: when you have a large document, running a full check one page at a time can be more efficient.
- Select one or more of the Checking Options
6. Click Start Checking. The results are displayed in the Accessibility Checker panel on the left, which also has helpful links and hints for repairing issues. If you created a report in step 2, the results are available in the selected folder. Because the Full Check feature cannot distinguish between essential and nonessential content types, some issues it reports don’t affect readability. It’s a good idea to review all issues to determine which ones require correction.
The report displays one of the following statuses for each rule check:
- Passed: The item is accessible.
- Skipped By User: Rule was not checked because it wasn't selected in the Accessibility Checker Options dialog box.
- Needs Manual Check: The Full Check feature couldn't check the item automatically. Verify the item manually.
- Failed: The item didn't pass the accessibility check.
Please see creating accessible documents guidelines for instructions at: https://www.ucop.edu/electronic-accessibility/web-developers/create-accessible-pdfs.html