Teaching · Special Education

Post PDFs every student and family can read.

Go down seventeen checks drawn from WCAG and PDF/UA. The checklist separates what blocks a screen reader from what merely slows it, and tells you whether to fix it in the source or the PDF.

Check a PDFWhat you get
$5one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $5

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Special Education toolkit, $99 for 100 items.

The PDF check

One check per document and date. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Special Education$5 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
A pass count, the blockers and other fixes with where to make each, and a plain answer on whether the PDF is ready to post.
Who it is for
Teachers, special education staff and the school or district staff who post documents for students and families.
Format
Browser checklist used with the PDF and its source file open. Saved checks; printed with the summary or as a blank form; CSV; export and import a file.
Access
$5 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Special Education toolkit ($99) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Special Education space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
H1PH2Pwhat you see, and what a screen reader hears
Drawn for this page. A PDF has two layers: the page people see and the tagged structure assistive technology reads. Both have to be right.

How to use it

  1. Start a check with a document code and the date.
  2. Say what the PDF was made from, its length and whether it has fields.
  3. Open the PDF and go down each check.
  4. Make the fixes, in the source file where you can, and export again.
  5. Copy the check to a new date and confirm everything passes.

Check a PDF

How to get to a pass

Fix it upstream

Most PDF problems start in the source file: headings typed in bold instead of heading styles, images without alternative text, tables without a header row. Fixing the source and exporting with tags on is faster and lasts; edits made only in the PDF disappear at the next export.

Why it matters for schools

Students and families with disabilities have a right to effective communication. The Justice Department’s 2024 rule under Title II of the ADA sets WCAG 2.1 AA as the standard for public entities’ web content and documents, with compliance dates phased in by size; check the current dates.

What this is not

A certification. Pair it with your PDF editor’s checker and a quick screen reader test.

Sources

  1. W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, and the PDF Techniques for WCAG.
  2. ISO 14289-1 (PDF/UA-1), the standard for universally accessible PDF.
  3. U.S. Department of Justice (2024). Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities, 28 CFR Part 35, Subpart H.
  4. Section508.gov, Create accessible PDFs and authoring guides for Word and PowerPoint.
  5. WebAIM, PDF Accessibility: converting documents to PDF.

The example document is made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.