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Accessible Technology

PDFs from PowerPoint

Creating an accessible PDF from PowerPoint starts with an accessible presentation. Before exporting, make sure the slide deck follows accessibility best practices as outlined on the Make slides accessible page.

When exported correctly, PowerPoint preserves the accessibility features in the PDF, including slide titles, reading order, alternate text for images, and markup that explicitly identifies lists, tables, document language, and other content that is important for accessibility.

Important: Avoid “Print to PDF”

Do not use the “Print to PDF” option when creating PDFs from PowerPoint. Printing to PDF removes the document’s accessibility tag structure, resulting in a PDF that has none of the accessibility features of the original PowerPoint file.

Instead, use the Save As or Export to PDF options described below.

Techniques

Techniques

  1. Open the File menu and select Save a copy. Choose where you want to save the file and select PDF from the file type menu. Select More options before saving.
  2. In the ‘Save As’ dialog, select the Options button.
  3. In the ‘Options’ dialog, make sure Document structure tags for accessibility is selected. Select OK, then save the file.

In PowerPoint for Windows, the Save a Copy dialog showing PDF save options with highlighted sections.

In PowerPoint for Windows, the “Save As" window box with the Options button highlighted.

In PowerPoint for Windows, the Options dialog with accessibility settings highlighted

Using the Save a copy method with accessibility structure tags enabled helps preserve important accessibility information from the presentation.

  1. Open the File menu and select Save As, choose PDF from the File Format menu.
  2. Select the option for Best for electronic distribution and accessibility, save the file.

This option helps preserve accessibility tags and document structure in the exported PDF.

Screen shot of the Save As dialog in PowerPoint for Mac. The File format radio button that is best for accessibility is selected

After exporting, review the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro or another accessibility checker, as outlined on the Checking PDFs for accessibility page to verify that the accessibility structure was preserved correctly. While exporting from an accessible PowerPoint file generally results in an accessible PDF, additional review or remediation may still be needed depending on the complexity of the content.