Section 2 Markup
Use Case.
Format .tex files to produce a more accessible output, or update an existing PDF or Microsoft document to be accessible by screen readers.
Time Commitment.
Minimal to significant. To format .tex files, the effort is minimal. To update existing PDF documents, the effort is typically significant, and is not expected that faculty attempt this without support.
Subsection 2.1 LaTeX
The LaTeX tagging project has made it possible to enable tagging of the PDF outputs. The new code can be used with pdfLaTeX or luaLaTeX. The latter is the preferred engine recommended for new documents. Its use is currently restricted to the standard document classes (article, report, and book).
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latex3.github.io/tagging-project/documentation/prototype-usage-instructions.htmlThis is an active project and changes are ongoing. There is a documented list of packages with their current compatibility status with respect to tagging.
 2 
latex3.github.io/tagging-project/tagging-status/Most tagging is done for you automatically. Some information must be provided by the author for tagging, namely for tables and images. A template file is provided below indicating the important syntax to include in your documents.
% !TeX program = lualatex
\DocumentMetadata{
pdfversion=2.0,
lang=en-US,
pdfstandard={ua-2, a-4f},
tagging = on,
tagging-setup={math/setup={mathml-SE}} ,
}
% The complete list of keys available for \DocumentMetadata are documented at
% https://ctan.math.washington.edu/tex-archive/macros/latex-dev/required/latex-lab/documentmetadata-support-code.pdf
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{unicode-math}
\begin{document}
\section{Document Title}
A section is tagged with header level H1. There should only be one per document.
\subsection{Part 1}
Other parts of the document can be subsections, which are tagged with header level H2.
\noindent When creating a table, it is important to indicate the header row(s).
\tagpdfsetup{table/header-rows={1}}
\begin{tabular}{lr}
Name & Value\\
This & 11 \\
That & 2
\end{tabular}
\subsection{Part 3}
This part has an image. It is important to include alternative text for images, or mark them as decorative.
The first has an alt text, while the second is marked as decorative. See
Subsection 5.1 for more information.
\includegraphics[height=4cm, alt={The Colorado State University ram logo.}]{image.png}
\includegraphics[height=4cm, artifact]{image.png}
\end{document}
It may be necessary to update your packages to get your document to compile. Using TeX Live 2025 with updated packages, the above file compiles to this tagged example PDF. The code does not currently compile for me on Overleaf.
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jshriner6.github.io/files/TagSample.pdfSubsection 2.2 PDF
To make an existing PDF with no source file fully accessible, you can complete the "Advanced Tasks in Acrobat Professional" items.
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www.chhs.colostate.edu/accessibility/best-practices-how-tos/pdf-converted/Subsection 2.3 Microsoft Word and Powerpoint
To make Word and Powerpoint documents fully accessible, you can complete the Priority and Advanced Tasks for Word and the Priority and Advanced Tasks for Powerpoint.
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www.chhs.colostate.edu/accessibility/best-practices-how-tos/word/ 6 
www.chhs.colostate.edu/accessibility/best-practices-how-tos/powerpoint/Pay particular attention to the Color Contrast topic for these documents. This can be checked and fixed with minimal effort.
