Through a recent engagement and partnership with Microsoft, we have learned that our current Microsoft Word (Word) versions have an accessibility feature that can quickly and easily make scanned PDF documents – and some other PDF documents – accessible using screen readers.  We are sharing how to use this feature and encourage you to do the same, as it can benefit the department, our employees, our partners, and our consumers.

In order to use this feature, open a scanned PDF of a text document using Word, and this will convert the content of the document into a Word document with standard Word formatting. To do this, Word will run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on the scanned document.  Please note that similar to other OCR tools, this Word feature is not 100% accurate.  However, even without perfect accuracy, some text with formatting will be available right away, the amount being dependent on the content and quality of the original PDF. This method of scanned images does not work in Excel or PowerPoint.

Please see the following article for more information on this feature: Microsoft Word opening PDFs. A closed captioned Edit a PDF video is also available for additional instructions.

Microsoft has demonstrated continued commitment to improving accessibility in its products.  In addition to converting a scanned PDF to a text document, Word also includes a Microsoft Accessibility checker tool that has really good functionality now and will continue to be improved in planned upgrades. More information about Microsoft accessibility features can be found on the Microsoft Windows Accessibility page, and Microsoft’s Office Accessibility page. This feature of Word and more information about accessible documents can be found on the DOR website in the Web Accessibility Toolkit, and DOR’s Disability Access Services (DAS) will be incorporating this feature into future Accessible Document trainings.