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PDFs are everywhere on websites — meeting minutes, school handbooks, annual reports, newsletters, forms, and more. But many of these documents are not accessible to people with disabilities unless they are “remediated.” In this post, we’ll explain exactly what PDF remediation is, why it’s so important, what kinds of PDFs tend to need it (and which are hardest), and how Guello Marketing makes the process as painless as possible.

What Is PDF Remediation?

PDF remediation is the process of making a PDF accessible so that people with disabilities — especially those using screen readers or other assistive technology — can reliably navigate, read, and understand its content. Accessibility advocates explain that remediation involves adding structure (like “tags”), alt text for images, establishing a logical reading order, creating metadata, marking up tables and forms, and ensuring color contrast and navigation all meet accessibility standards.

According to a blog from Accessibility.com: remediation aligns the PDF with key digital accessibility principles such as Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR).

In technical terms, accessibility standards typically referenced include WCAG 2.1 (or 2.2) AA, PDF/UA, and Section 508 (in the U.S.).

Types of Website PDFs That Often Need Remediation

Here are some common kinds of PDFs you’ll find on websites — especially for schools, municipal organizations, and nonprofits — that often need remediation:

1. Newsletters / Bulletins
   
2. School Handbooks / Parent & Student Manuals
   
3. Financial Reports / Annual Reports
   
4. Forms & Applications (enrollment forms, permission slips, registration forms)
   
5. Meeting Minutes / Agendas
   
6. Policy Documents / Bylaws
   
7. Marketing Collateral (brochures, tri-folds, flyers distributed as PDF)
   
8. Scanned Paper Documents (old documents, legacy reports, scanned paper records)
   

Which PDFs Are the Hardest to Remediate & Why

Some PDFs pose more difficulty than others, for various reasons:

• Scanned Documents / Image-only PDFs: These often lack a text layer. To make them accessible, you must run OCR (Optical Character Recognition), then tag the resulting text structure. Without OCR, screen readers read page-by-page or give no meaningful content.
  
• Complex Layouts (Charts, Tables, Graphs): Tables need proper header tagging, and charts or graphs require descriptive alt text. Remediating them is time-consuming and often requires human judgment.
  
• Interactive Forms: Form fields must have labels, tooltips, tab order, and proper naming so screen readers can correctly announce them.
  
• Redacted Documents: These are especially tricky. According to accessibility guidelines (e.g., from state guidance), not only do they demand accessible structure, but care must be taken around redaction methods.
  
• Scientific or Mathematical PDFs: Documents with formulas, equations, or specialized notation may require very precise alt text or tagging. In fact, a recent academic paper showed how remediation tools struggle to tag math correctly, and that remediating such documents well takes specialized techniques.
  

Why You Need a Strategy for Future PDFs

Having a one-time remediation is good — but without a PDF accessibility strategy, your site may slide back into non-compliance. Here’s why a proactive strategy matters:

• Ongoing Updates: Organizations often upload new PDFs (newsletters, meeting minutes, reports). Without a process, these new files may not be accessible.
  
• Consistency: Remediated files maintain a consistent structure, but if new PDFs are published without the same care, they may break that standard.
  
• Legal Risk: In many places, digital accessibility is not just “nice to have” — it’s a legal requirement. Accessibility scanning platforms (like Acquia’s Web Governance) include PDF scanners to flag inaccessible documents.
  
• User Experience: For people using screen readers, inconsistent accessibility can be frustrating. A single non-compliant PDF may become a barrier.
  

What It Feels Like for Someone with Vision Impairment

Without remediation: Imagine a parent who’s legally blind, using a screen reader (like NVDA or VoiceOver) to access your school’s PDF newsletter. Because the PDF has no tags, the screen reader reads the page out loud like a block of text or — worse — ignores headings, links, or images entirely. Tables may be read in confusing order, and alt text for images is missing. The user may not even know where to start or how to navigate between sections.

With remediation: Now imagine the same PDF, but it’s properly tagged. The screen reader announces headings (“Heading 1: School Newsletter, Heading 2: Upcoming Events”), the parent can skip between sections, links are clearly identified (“Click here for Spring Carnival registration”), and images include descriptive alt text (“photo of children playing in the school playground”). The reading order makes sense, and the form fields are labeled so the parent can fill out registration or sign-up forms. The experience is smooth and logical.

Costs of PDF Remediation: DIY vs Professional

Automated / Machine-Driven Services

There are several well-known services that use AI + automation to remediate PDFs. Here are a few:

• Accessibility on Demand (AoD): Starts at $0.30/page for standard remediation, $1.80/page for enhanced, and up to $12/page for expert human review.
• Tabnav: AI-powered remediation (alt text, tagging, reading order, structure) with compliance reporting.
• EqualWeb PDF Auto Tag Remediation: Auto-tags headings, reading order, tables, etc., to meet WCAG 2.2 AA and Section 508.
• Recite Me: Provides a PDF scanner, content checks, remediation interface, and redeployment with accessible versions.
  

These automated tools are cost-effective for large volume and speed, but even they still require a review to ensure alt text is meaningful, reading order makes sense, or tables are correctly understood, which increases the final cost significantly to at least $4-5 a page.

Manual / Human-Assisted Remediation

Experts or human-accessibility services (like Accessible.org) charge based on complexity — more complex documents (charts, forms, scanned docs) cost more.
On freelance platforms, remediation specialists may charge:

• Simple PDFs: $4/page
  
• Moderate: $5/page
  
• Complex or multi-column / forms: $6–$12/page
  

How Guello Marketing makes PDF Remediation Easy (and Affordable)

At Guello Marketing, we simplify the entire remediation process:

1. You just email us the PDF.
   
2. We remediate it — adding tags, alt text, structure, correct reading order, and form labeling when needed.
   
3. We upload it to your website (or send back a remediated, ready-to-publish version).
   

Because we’ve optimized our workflow, our pricing is among the lowest in the industry — without sacrificing quality or compliance. You don’t need to juggle multiple tools, worry about DIY mistakes, or set up complicated accessibility workflows.

We also help you build a remediation strategy: whenever you produce a new PDF (newsletter, meeting agenda, policy), you can simply send it to us, and we handle the rest. That protects your site and ensures everyone — including users with disabilities — has access.

Closing Thoughts

PDF remediation is more than just compliance — it’s about equity. When your PDFs are accessible, everyone can access the same information, whether they’re a parent reading school policy, a resident downloading a meeting agenda, or someone with a disability navigating your content.

At Guello Marketing, we believe accessibility should be simple, affordable, and reliable. Let us take care of your PDF remediation so you can focus on your core mission — knowing that your website is inclusive and legally sound.

If you’d like a custom quote for PDF remediation (or a strategy for keeping future PDFs accessible), just contact us at 810 705-0581.