On a website, important information should be presented in a (HTML) web page for customers to see immediately and clearly without them having to download a separate file.

Documents, such as PDFs, are often difficult to view on smart devices and are not automatically accessible.

Wherever possible work with the web team to bring content out of PDF and into a web page.

Types of documents that we use on the council website:

• PDF
• Word
• Excel

PDFs

PDFs are difficult to navigate on mobile devices and you often need to zoom and scroll in order to read content. With over 75% of people using their mobile device or tablet to visit the council website, the majority of users would have difficulty accessing information in PDF. In light of this, reducing PDFs is a high priority for the web team.

Sometimes it is necessary to publish content in a document format. This guide is to make sure your documents meet the necessary accessibility criteria.

Scanned documents are not accessible. A scan creates an image of the text, rather than a digital copy of the text. This makes it impossible for screen reading technology to pick up on any content.

Find out how to create and convert an accessible PDF document on the GOV.uk website.

If your document is created in word you can make some changes to the content before converting to PDF to make it more accessible.

Word documents

We have produced a helpful video guide on how to create accessible Word documents that you can then convert to PDF.

Documents that do not meet accessibility requirements

If it is not possible to make your document fully accessible or it proves a disproportionate burden for the council to do so, you must include a summary of the document that can be added as content to the webpage. It would also be helpful if you could include an alternative version or instructions on how customers could obtain the information in another way.

The most important thing to remember is that no customer should be at disadvantage because they cannot access the information we provide.

We will publish the following notice alongside any document designed for print that does not meet web accessibility criteria:

The information in this document has been designed for print and may not be fully accessible online.

Mae’r wybodaeth yn y ddogfen hon wedi’i dylunio i’w hargraffu ac efallai na fydd modd gweld popeth ar-lein.