Create Accessible PDFs with InDesign – Recorded Course
Learn from the experts at Highlander!
Ensure your PDF documents are fully accessible when created in InDesign
This course contains over 2.5 hours of HD video tutorials and is aimed at users who are already familiar with InDesign and want to learn to create fully accessible PDFs from within this industry leading desktop publishing package. Ensure your workflow is efficient by maximising the hidden features of InDesign, making your documents fully inclusive.Why take this course
Accessibility can be a confusing subject when you start out and many people use free tutorials to learn how to add basic accessible features within Acrobat. This is incredibly inefficient and means you have to add everything again which each revision. This course enables you to work smarter and faster within InDesign to remove the need for this extra step.Skills worth having
Understand core Accessibility concepts
We start by fully understanding what accessibility means, who it affects, and how even simple changes can make documents significantly more inclusive for users with diverse needs
Master the read order
Discover various methods to control the read order in your documents, ensuring a logical flow for screen reading devices. Understand why read order varies across devices, what happens if it's not set correctly, and why explicit read order settings are not always necessary.Sample video from the course
Managing Tables
Learn how to create accessible tables in InDesign by setting up header rows and verifying that tagging is correct. Ensure your tables are properly exported and recognized by screen readers.Artifacting
Understand how to properly artifact items in InDesign to ensure non-essential elements, like decorative images and graphics, are ignored by screen readers. We will cover manual artifacting and using object styles to streamline the process, ensuring that users with visual impairments focus on meaningful content and are provided with a better experience.Table of Contents and Bookmarks
We will explore using paragraph styles to generate a table of contents that allows for easy navigation and ensures it is properly styled and tagged for screen readers. You'll also learn to add bookmarks that enhance document navigation, making it more user-friendly for individuals with accessibility requirements.Sample video from the course
Export Tagging through Styles
Find out how to set export tags for your content using paragraph styles. Learn which tags to use and how to verify that tags have been exported correctly to your PDF within Acrobat. By understanding tagging and the order of tagging, you will create more accessible and user-friendly PDFs.Colour Contrast
We will cover techniques for evaluating colour contrast ratios, including how to proof colour contrast in Photoshop using its built-in tools. By understanding and applying proper contrast levels, you’ll enhance the readability of your PDFs and provide a more inclusive experience for all users.Working with Bullets and Lists
Ensure your bullets and lists are fully accessible and correctly tagged for accessibility. Learn why not all bullet characters are created equal and how some may not work properly in accessible PDFsSample video from the course
Anchoring images for flow
You will learn how to anchor images within the text flow in InDesign to control the read order when exporting to an accessible PDF. We will demonstrate how to properly position and anchor images so that they are logically integrated with the surrounding text, ensuring a coherent reading experience for screen readers.In addition you will
- Better understand the impact of Parent items on an accessible workflow and how to handle that.
- Understand how to handle complex charts and graphs
- Run accessibility checks on your documents and generate an accessibility report which can be used for audit purposes
- Learn a number of other tricks in InDesign which will speed up your workflow

Volume licences
Looking multi user access? We offer discounts for more than one users, just message us through the contact form here and let us know how many users. Contact us for details
No risk guarantee
Curious whether to choose face-to-face training or try our pre-recorded course? If you're not completely satisfied with the pre-recorded option, you can switch to the live online version at any stage, and we'll deduct what you paid for the pre-recorded course from the total cost.Start Right Now
£75.00
Associated Courses
6 Months Unlimited Access Subscription
Feedback from past students
(including from live classes)
Fantastic Course highly recommend.
Andy was great, very knowledgeable on ID accessibility but we also picked up many other ID handy hints and tips. Good to do a well-constructed course on line.
Andy has an amazing depth of knowledge and is a fabulous instructor.
The online course was delivered really well. The course was very informative and i have learnt a surprising amount about the software i use daily, that i didn't know before. It's also left me feeling confident i know what i'm doing in creating Accessibility artwork.
About the course instructor
This course is produced by Andy Gardiner, a CompTIA Certified Technical Trainer with over 25 years experience on the Adobe product range. Andy has taught courses to some of the worlds best known organisations, and his experience includes over a decade working as an Adobe Certified Instructor. In addition to this he is also the author of "Designing the Adobe InDesign Way" published by Packt Publishing.

Andy was great and I would highly recommend him and the course.
Really impressive knowledge and managed to help us through any issues or bugs we ran into - thank you. Learnt a lot more about InDesign regardless of this being based on accessibility.
Andy was really friendly and approachable and extremely knowledgeable on both the course and InDesign in general and was able to teach us some great tips. Felt the course really gave me a grasp on the process and prepared to create content myself.
Start Right Now
£75.00
Associated Courses
6 Months Unlimited Access Subscription
Was very knowledgeable and helpful, really useful course! Working alongside the tutorials was very useful and allowed us to practice with support.
The live training was really clear and concise, full of not only the essential training for accessibility but also some good tips, tricks and timesavers which will come in handy. His expertise really shows and was able to myth bust some preconceptions with the software. Excellent training!