Introduction: Generating Tagged and Untagged PDF from Popular Applications

---

With Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional, you can make PDF files from any software application that you can print from. Indeed, it's the same as if you were printing a file to a printer. The difference is, instead of generating a printed sheet of paper, the result is a PDF file. PDF files created this way typically do not have all of the necessary attributes required for the PDF file to be considered accessible. At this point, the file can be thought of as a legacy PDF and you would employ the appropriate techniques for making legacy PDF files accessible (See "Step 5: Determine If the PDF File is a Legacy PDF File). If the source file was created to specify the layout for an interactive form, then the proper techniques to use are those for interactive forms (See "Step 4: Determine If the PDF File is Meant to Be an Interactive Form).

If you have Adobe Acrobat installed on your system, you can generate an untagged legacy PDF file simply by printing to Adobe PDF. You do this from the application's print dialog, just as you would if you wanted to produce a hard copy of the file. Instead of generating paper, the result is a PDF file (See "Applications That Do Not Directly Generate Tagged PDF).

A limited set of applications are able to directly generate tagged PDF files. Some of these applications are available from Adobe and some are available from other software manufacturers. In the case of Microsoft Office applications, the user will need a component, the Adobe PDF Maker for Microsoft Office, which is only available to users who also have Adobe Acrobat installed on their system.

Some of these applictions are discussed in detail in this module. PDF files generated from these applications will typically have the necessary accessibility attributes added to the PDF. In order for PDF files to come out properly prepared for accessibility, the user will have to take steps to prepare the source file for proper PDF export. Techniques for doing this in some popular applications are described in the section on generating tagged PDF from popular applications (See "Applications That Directly Generate Tagged PDF). Refer to the appropriate section describing the application you are using.