Scanned Materials
Clear and Accessible
When scanned materials are shared with students, for example in PDF format, it is important that they are clear and legible. The materials must also be accessible to screen readers. Blind and visually impaired students use screen readers to listen to reading materials, and screen readers are also increasingly used by others, for example to listen to text while working on something else.
If scanned text is presented as an image, the text will not work with screen readers and is therefore not accessible to everyone.
Is the Document Accessible?
A simple way to check whether the text in a PDF document is accessible is to:
- select all the text in the document,
- copy it,
- paste it into, for example, Notepad or Notes,
- and check whether the text appears correctly.
If this is not possible, the text is probably not accessible.
Further information
For more information on whether PDF documents are accessible to students, see for example: