Streamline Blog

Ensuring your PDFs are accessible isn’t just about checking a compliance box—it’s about making your content usable for everyone. Whether you're part of a government agency, school district, nonprofit, or public-facing organization, accessible documents are a key part of digital inclusion.

Ensuring your PDFs are accessible not only broadens your audience but also helps you meet legal and organizational compliance standards. Remediating a PDF means making it usable by assistive technologies (screen readers, voice recognition software, etc.) so that people with disabilities can access the same content. Below is a straightforward, step-by-step guide to help you remediate your PDF documents effectively.

Digital accessibility is about more than just meeting legal standards—it’s about ensuring everyone in your community has equal access to public information and services. For local governments, that includes websites and the documents they publish online—everything from council minutes to permit forms and embedded PDFs. As the Department of Justice formalizes clear expectations and deadlines, now is the time for public agencies to take a thoughtful, proactive approach to PDF accessibility.

Between federal ADA requirements, state open meetings acts, state-specific transparency laws, WCAG standards, and the recent Department of Justice (DOJ) ruling, special districts nationwide face growing pressure to make their websites more transparent, accessible, and legally compliant. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone. But there’s good news: compliance is entirely achievable—and we’re here to guide you every step of the way.

Website accessibility is no longer just a best practice—it’s a legal requirement. Many special districts are finding themselves caught in unexpected and costly ADA compliance lawsuits. While website accessibility tools and widgets promise easy solutions, they often fall short, leaving districts vulnerable to legal challenges.

The Department of Justice has issued new website accessibility guidelines that will significantly impact special districts nationwide. Here are the 5 biggest takeaways:

By the end of 2023, more than 10% of districts were affected by a website ADA claim. This rapid increase is startling, and we want to help you stay informed and prepared for any risks facing special districts.

So, you’ve tested your site for WCAG 2.1 AA compliance, and while you’re well on your way, you still have some areas of your site that aren’t quite up to modern standards. Perhaps some of those supporting board materials from third parties are wrecking your score and keeping you up at night, or your website developer is taking forever to fix those items identified in your last monthly scan…

California legislators are pushing for additional transparency requirements for local government agencies. Their latest bid, Senate Bill 931, will require our districts to provide a copy of the full agenda packet via mail or email to anyone who requests it. Sounds like a great idea on the surface, doesn’t it? Of course, we agree that the public has the right to know what their elected officials are doing when it comes to official district business, but there are numerous problems with this proposed bill.

Creating websites that are accessible to visitors with disabilities can be challenging, especially for developers building one-off / standalone sites. Most websites that were built even a year ago are likely not accessible, and many of the content management systems out there aren't accessible out-of-the-box, so to speak. If your website partner wasn't specifically told to build your website in an accessible way, it's likely that your site may have a few issues. Accessible websites aren't easy to build! If you're wondering if your site is accessible, you can get an idea by using an automated scanner. Automated testing won't catch every potential issue, but it will check the basics (and the most obvious), giving you an overall idea of how you're doing. (If you need 100% comprehensive testing, have it done by professionals using assistive devices.) So how do you test your site yourself?