How to Make Scanned PDFs Accessible

Scanned PDFs represent a significant barrier to learning for many students—which is why they can tank your course’s accessibility score. Whenever possible, it’s best to replace them with digital text, which can be selected, copy-and-pasted cleanly, and read aloud by screen readers.

When a digital text replacement is not available, you can still make the content of a scanned PDFs accessible for your students, by adding a Library Reference with Ally 

(This also moves your Blackboard courses toward compliance with the ADA’s accessibility requirements by the April deadline.)

Add a Library Reference

The red accessibility meter icon indicates a low accessibility score.

1. In Blackboard, click your PDF’s accessibility meter icon to open the file’s Accessibility score.
2. Click How to tag a PDF to begin the process.
3. Click No on Step 1.
4. Click Yes on Step 2.
5. Add as much of the PDF’s reference information as you can—or, simply paste the permalink from the source’s OneSearch result into the URL field.
6. Click Add reference.
   

   The permalink on a OneSearch result is sufficient as a library reference

Once you’ve completed these steps for your PDF, its accessibility score will jump to 100%. Students will be able to find it under Alternative formats → Library reference.