Guide
How to export an accessible PDF from InDesign
Get it right in the layout and the export is almost free. The Articles panel is the setting that matters most, and the one most people never open.
About 14 minutes · moderate
In the layout, before you export
1. Map paragraph styles to tags. Paragraph Styles → Style Options → Export Tagging → PDF. Map heading styles to H1–H6, body to P. Do this once in the template and every document built from it inherits it.
2. Use the Articles panel. Window → Articles. Drag frames into it in reading order, and tick Use for Tagging Order.
This is the setting that matters. It is what sets the reading order in the export, and it is why an InDesign document laid out with sidebars and pull quotes can export with a correct structure tree instead of a scrambled one. Two minutes here saves forty in Acrobat. Why reading order is the expensive one →
3. Alt text on placed images. Select the frame → Object → Object Export Options → Alt Text → Custom or From XMP. It travels with the image and survives relinking.
4. Real table headers. Table → Convert Rows → To Header.
5. Document title and language. File → File Info → Document Title. Language comes from the paragraph style — Advanced Character Formats → Language — so a Hebrew style should be set to Hebrew.
6. Anchor floating objects. An unanchored frame has no natural position in the reading order. Anchoring it puts it where it belongs.
The export dialog
File → Export → Adobe PDF (Print or Interactive).
General:
- ✓ Create Tagged PDF
- ✓ Use Structure for Tab Order
- ✓ Hyperlinks
- ✓ Bookmarks
Advanced:
- Display Title: Document Title
That last one is /DisplayDocTitle, and it is the difference between a screen reader announcing your document’s name and announcing Untitled-3.pdf. Why →
What to check afterwards
Even a well-built export is worth validating, because two things reliably need attention:
Table header scope on anything more complex than a simple grid. How →
Reading order, if you did not use the Articles panel. If you did, it is usually right.
Run the file through a validator before you send it. Taggart’s is free and unlimited and takes about a second; PAC and veraPDF are also free.
For Hebrew and Arabic documents
InDesign ME and recent versions with World-Ready composers produce logical-order text correctly. Older documents, and anything that has been round-tripped through other tools, may not.
InDesign will not tell you, and the page will look perfect. What that failure is →
Frequently asked questions
Which export preset should I use?
Either Adobe PDF (Print) or (Interactive) works; what matters are the checkboxes. Under General, tick Create Tagged PDF and Use Structure for Tab Order. Under Advanced, set Display Title to Document Title.
Does the Articles panel really matter that much?
It is the single highest-value thing in this guide. It sets the reading order in the export. Without it, InDesign orders elements by stacking order and page position, which on any multi-column or floated layout is wrong — and fixing it afterwards in Acrobat takes twenty times longer.
Will this produce a fully conformant PDF?
It gets you most of the way. What it will not reliably do is table header scope on complex tables, and it cannot do anything about right-to-left storage order in Hebrew or Arabic documents.
Related guides
- How to add and write alt text for images in a PDFAdding alt text to a PDF image starts with deciding whether it is informative. Then what to say, what to leave out, how to add it free, and where AI helps.
- How to fix PDF reading orderA working method for finding and repairing reading order, free in Acrobat and faster in Taggart, including the two-column case that costs the most time.
- How to export an accessible PDF from WordThe export path that keeps tags and the three that silently destroy them, plus what still needs fixing in Acrobat afterwards.
- How to get PDF headings and bookmarks rightHeading levels are how a screen-reader user navigates a long document. Skipped levels, fake headings and empty bookmarks, and how to fix each.
Related failure conditions
- 09-001 Tags are not in logical reading orderThe order of elements in the structure tree does not match the order a human would read the page. This is the single most common substantive defect in tagged PDFs and the one Acrobat's own tooling handles worst.
- 13-004 Figure tag alternative or replacement text missingA Figure element has neither /Alt nor /ActualText. Every Figure must have one or the other; if the image is decorative it should be an artifact instead of a Figure.
- 14-003 Numbered heading levels in descending sequence are skippedThe heading hierarchy jumps a level going down — H1 straight to H3. Going back up any number of levels is fine; going down must be one level at a time.
- 11-001 Natural language for text in page content cannot be determinedNo /Lang is in effect for some text: neither on the catalog, nor on an enclosing structure element, nor on a marked-content sequence.
Check your own file. Taggart's validator is free and unlimited — no page cap, no watermark, and no account at all up to 60 pages.
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