Can a screen reader read this PDF?

The free PDF checker downloads the file you name and reports five things a screen reader depends on: whether the pages have real text or are pictures of text, whether the file is tagged, whether it has a title, whether its language is set, and whether a password blocks assistive technology. It changes nothing and keeps no copy.

Not necessarily. Automated checks find some problems, not all. A person still has to confirm the reading order, that headings and lists are marked correctly, that tables have header cells, and that maps and images are described. That human check is the part automated tools cannot do, and it is what we do every month.

A tagged PDF carries a hidden structure that tells a screen reader which text is a heading, a list, a table or a caption, and in what order to read it. Without tags, the reader gets one long stream of text with nothing to jump between, so finding one agenda item means listening from the top.

A scanned agenda is a photograph of paper. A screen reader looks for text and finds none, so it says nothing or announces an empty page. The fix starts with optical character recognition, which adds real text, and then tags, a title and a language. Scanning signed paper and posting it is the most common cause.

No. The checker reads the file once to test it and then discards it. We keep only a count of checks per network address, stored as a one-way code, so the free tool cannot be overused. Only paste addresses of documents your office has already made public on its website.