Highlander Accessibility Checker Documentation
Highlander Accessibility Checker is an Adobe InDesign plugin that helps you identify accessibility problems before exporting a tagged PDF. It checks the active InDesign document, groups findings by priority and accessibility area, helps you locate affected objects, and creates a shareable HTML report.
The checker is designed as a pre-export assistant. It can find many common problems and likely risks, but no automated tool can prove that a PDF is accessible. Always inspect the exported PDF and validate it with PAC or another suitable PDF/UA checker. Important matters such as the accuracy of alternative text, the true meaning of content, colour contrast, and the usability of a reading order still require human judgement.
Setting up the Highlander Accessibility Checker
In this section we will look at system requirements for the plugin, installing the plugin, activating the licence, checking licence status. deactivating the plugin and updating the plugin.
Requirements
- Adobe InDesign 2023 (version 18.4) or later.
- An internet connection for first-time licence activation and periodic licence validation.
- A valid Highlander Accessibility Checker licence or trial licence.
- Permission to save files if you want to export reports.
The plugin runs as a dockable InDesign panel. A panel width of 380 px or more is recommended, although it can be used from 320 px wide.
Ensure you have taken all necessary backups before installing the plugin.
Installing Highlander Accessibility Checker
- Download the latest Highlander Accessibility Checker `.ccx` installer
- Close Adobe InDesign.
- Open the `.ccx` file and follow the Creative Cloud installation prompts.
- Reopen InDesign.
- From the Plugins menu select Highlander Accessibility Checker.
Adobe Plugin Installation Warning
When installing the Highlander Accessibility Checker, Adobe’s Plugin Manager displays a standard warning for all third party plugins. This warning is generated by Adobe and does not indicate that the plugin performs all of the actions listed.
Like many InDesign plugins, the Highlander Accessibility Checker requires certain permissions in order to function. These permissions are used for the features described below.
| Permission shown by Adobe | Why the Plugin requires it |
|---|---|
| Read and write files on your device | The plugin needs to read the currently open InDesign document in order to analyse it for accessibility issues. It also needs permission to save exported accessibility reports to your chosen location. |
| Make and receive network requests | Internet access is used to validate software licences, check for updates, and communicate with the licensing server. No document content is uploaded for accessibility analysis. |
| Access devices present on your computer | This is a generic permission displayed by Adobe for third party plugins. The Highlander Accessibility Checker does not access hardware devices such as webcams, microphones or other peripherals as part of its normal operation. |
The Highlander Accessibility Checker requests only the permissions required to provide its documented functionality. If you have any questions about how the plugin handles data or uses these permissions, please contact Highlander Training before installation.
Your InDesign documents are analysed locally on your computer. The plugin does not upload your document contents to our servers for accessibility checking.
Activating Your Licence
The first time you open Highlander Accessibility Checker, the panel shows the licence info.
- Click `Get free licence key` if you haven’t yet obtained a licence key. A licence key is needed even for the free trial.
- Check your email for the licence key.
- Return to the Highlander Accessibility Checker panel in InDesign.
- Enter the same email address and the licence key.
- Tick the End User Licence Agreement checkbox.
- Click `Activate`.
After activation, the panel opens the tools view. The header shows the installed version, licence tier, last validation date, and current validation status.
The email address must match the customer email associated with the licence key. Activation also registers this installation against the licence’s activation allowance.
Licence Status and Validation
Highlander Accessibility Checker periodically checks that the licence is still valid. The status pill in the panel can show:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Validated | The licence is active and current. |
| Grace mode | The plugin could not validate online, but the temporary offline grace period is still active. |
| Blocked | Validation failed or the offline grace period has expired. |
| Checking | The plugin is currently checking the licence state. |
If access is blocked, use `Retry validation` after reconnecting to the internet.
Licence Info and Deactivation
Use the panel menu to open `Licence Info`. This shows details such as registered email, product, variant, activation, usage, expiry, and last checked date.
Click `Deactivate Licence` when moving the licence to another machine or when removing the plugin from a workstation. Deactivation clears the current installation’s licence activation.
Updating Highlander Accessibility Checker
Use `Version Info` from the panel menu to check whether a newer build is available.
- Open the panel menu.
- Choose `Version Info`.
- Click `Check for updates`.
- If an update is available, use `Download update`.
- Close InDesign before installing the new `.ccx`.
Using the Highlander Accessibility Checker
Running an accessibility check
The checker analyses the active InDesign document, not a previously exported PDF. With this in mind, for the most useful results:
- Open the InDesign document you want to assess and make it the active document.
- Save recent changes.
- Apply all the required accessibility features in InDesign (eg: export tagging, alt text, artfacting etc.). If you are unsure how to do this, you should consider our Creating Accessible PDF’s in InDesign course which is available either as a live course or a pre-recorded course.
- Open the Highlander Accessibility Checker panel.
- Select **Run Accessibility Preflight**.
- Leave the document open while the checks run. How long this takes varies depending on the length and complexity of the document, but is often no more than a few minutes and on short document may be only a matter of seconds.
- Review the dashboard and findings when the status changes, apply fixes to the document and then click Refresh in order to update the results. Refresh runs the checks again while retaining your current “shy” choices. Running Accessibility Preflight starts a fresh assessment and clears those choices.
- If required export a summary or detailed report. This will be formatted in an html format and can be viewed in any web browser by simply double clicking the file.
Understand the Results
The panel uses four result types:
| Result | What it means |
|---|---|
| Error | A strong indication of a problem likely to affect tagged-PDF accessibility or PDF/UA conformance. Address these first. |
| Warning | A likely accessibility risk or inconsistency that needs correction or informed review. |
| Review | Something automation cannot decide reliably. Inspect it manually and approve it only when you have confirmed it is acceptable. |
| Passed | The check found no matching issue in the content it could inspect. A pass is not a guarantee of conformance. |
Use All Results, Errors, Warnings, Review, and Passed to filter the panel. Findings are also grouped into accessibility areas such as Document Information, Structure & Navigation, Language, Images, Tables, Links & References, and Interactive Content.
Accessibility Readiness
The Accessibility Readiness score is the percentage of unique checks that have either passed or were flagged for manual review and then marked Approved. Multiple findings from the same check count as one unique check, so fixing ten instances of one issue affects the score as one check rather than ten.
The score is a workflow indicator, not a compliance score or accessibility certification. Hidden or “shy” issues remain real findings and should not be treated as resolved.
The dashboard also shows:
- total errors, warnings, reviews, and passed checks;
- top issue groups;
- a recommended fix order; and
- estimated fix impact based on the number and priority of related results.
Open and inspect a finding
Select a result to display About this result, including why it matters and a suggested correction. Where InDesign exposes the affected object, use the result action to select it and move to its page.
Some paragraph-style findings provide a targeted action to set the PDF export tag to Automatic. Use an automatic fix only after confirming that Automatic is appropriate for that style.
Approve a Review result
For a Review result:
- Inspect the indicated content and its intended behaviour.
- Make any necessary correction.
- Select Approve for the result, only when the item is acceptable.
Approval includes that review check in Accessibility Readiness. Run the preflight again after material document changes.
Mark findings as Shy
The eye icon allows you to mark an individual finding, a group, or a dashboard block as “shy”. The global eye control at the top left of the panel switches content marked as shy between visible and hidden.
This is useful when presenting or concentrating on selected findings; it does not fix, dismiss, or delete an issue. When exporting a report, choose Exclude hidden issues if you deliberately want those items marked as Shy to be omitted from the report.
Checks performed
Checks are heuristic and depend on information available through the InDesign document model. A check may produce an error, warning, review item, or pass depending on what it finds. Whilst the majority of accessibility issues can be detected within the InDesign document it is not possible to identify all issues due to limitations, not least, in what features the InDesign object model gives access to. As such you should always run additional accessibility checks on the final PDF.
Below is a list of the more common checks run by the accessibility checker grouped by category:
Document structure, metadata, and language
| Option in the Panel | What it does |
|---|---|
| Missing paragraph style language | Finds paragraph styles without a usable applied language. Set the appropriate language so assistive technology can pronounce exported text correctly. |
| Missing character style language | Finds character styles that may control text without an appropriate language assignment. |
| Missing document title | Checks for a meaningful title in document metadata. |
| Basic Paragraph or missing paragraph style usage | Finds content using Basic Paragraph or no reliable paragraph-style assignment. Consistent styles make export-tag mapping dependable. |
| Review language assignments | Flags documents containing multiple text languages so their assignments can be checked intentionally. |
| Multiple language settings | Reports the different languages used by document objects for consistency review. |
| Non-English text with English language | Detects likely non-English text still assigned an English language. Names and short borrowed words may be intentional. |
| Image-only document | Warns when the document appears to contain no readable live text. |
| Overset text | Finds text hidden in overset stories, which may be absent or unreliable in the exported PDF. |
| Invalid heading hierarchy | Detects heading-level jumps, such as moving from H1 directly to H3. |
| Empty heading | Finds heading-tagged paragraphs without meaningful text. |
| Icon fonts or private-use characters | Finds characters that may not have dependable Unicode meaning and may require accessible alternatives. |
| Literal ligature characters | Finds Unicode presentation ligatures such as “ff” or “fi” that may be better represented by ordinary letter sequences. |
| Symbol-style fonts or symbol-like characters | Identifies likely symbol-font content, improvised bullets, or characters whose Unicode mapping should be checked. |
| Possible unexplained acronym | Flags likely acronyms or uppercase terms that may need expanding on first use. |
| Very small text | Flags text below 6 pt as potentially inaccessible or accidental. |
| No bookmarks in documents over 10 pages | Recommends navigational bookmarks for longer documents. |
| No bookmarks in documents over 10 pages | Recommends navigational bookmarks for longer documents. |
| No table of contents in documents over 25 pages | Asks whether a generated table of contents is needed for a long document. |
Tagging and reading order
| Option in the Panel | What it does |
|---|---|
| Missing paragraph style export tags | Checks used paragraph styles for appropriate PDF export mappings. It also considers styles used in table text and TOC entries. |
| Missing object style export tags | Flags for review Object styles that have no tags set, this may be intentional but could be an accident. |
| Untagged page content | Reports likely exported content without a tag or decorative/artifact treatment. |
| Articles panel usage | Records whether Articles panel ordering is being used. |
| Objects missing from Articles | When Articles are used, finds likely exported objects not included in an Article. |
| Use for Tagging Order not enabled | Checks that Articles panel order is actually enabled for tagged-PDF export. |
| Articles reading order differs from page geometry | Flags an Articles order that differs substantially from the apparent positional order for manual review. |
| Export tag mismatch | Finds likely semantic mismatches, such as a heading-named style mapped to P or body text mapped to a heading tag. |
| TOC entry style export tags | Checks that table-of-contents entry styles use P or Automatic rather than inappropriate heading tags. |
| Bookmarks export setting | When bookmarks exist, checks that the current export preferences include them. |
| PDF structure for tab order | Checks that interactive PDF export uses document structure for tab order. |
Images and image-based content
| Option in the Panel | What it does |
|---|---|
| Missing Alt Text and not decorative | Finds image-like objects with neither a text alternative nor an intentional decorative treatment. |
| Embedded/placed PDF | Warns that placed PDFs export as graphics and do not retain the source PDF’s tags, reading order, bookmarks, form fields, or accessibility structure. |
| Decorative image contains Alt Text | Finds contradictory treatment. Remove the alternative text if the image is truly decorative, or remove the decorative setting if it conveys meaning. |
| Invalid or missing Alt Text source | Finds alternative text configured to use metadata that is unavailable or invalid. |
| Duplicated or filename-like Alt Text | Identifies descriptions that resemble filenames or repeat exactly across images and may not be meaningful. |
| Meaningful graphic marked as an artifact | Flags apparently meaningful graphics that have been excluded from the accessibility structure. |
| Floating images or captions | Finds unanchored meaningful images near captions. Anchoring can produce more dependable reading order. |
| Images of text | Uses object names and alternative text to flag likely scans, screenshots, logos, charts, diagrams, or other images containing text for human review. |
| Image-based page | Detects a page dominated by a large image, graphic, or placed PDF with little live text. Such a page may need live text, OCR/remediation, or a fuller alternative. |
| Text converted to outlines | Detects obvious outlined text, which no longer behaves as readable text. |
| Possible outlined text | Uses geometric and naming clues to identify objects that may be letters converted to vector paths and need visual confirmation. |
Tables and lists
| Option in the Panel | What it does |
|---|---|
| Table missing header row | Finds tables with no designated header row. |
| Empty table header cell | Finds designated header cells without visible content. |
| Inconsistent table structure | Flags merged, row-spanning, or column-spanning cells for structural review. |
| Empty rows or columns | Checks for empty structural table areas. In the current release this check reports a pass while fuller detection remains conservative. |
| Empty body cells | Flags empty data cells so you can confirm that they are intentional. |
| Table used for layout | Identifies small tables without headers that may have been used to position content rather than represent data. |
| Fake table | Detects paragraphs aligned with tabs or repeated spaces that may visually imitate a table without semantic table structure. |
| Bullet characters in list styles | Reviews bullet glyph choices used by InDesign list formatting. |
| Manual bullets | Finds apparent bulleted lists created with typed characters rather than InDesign’s list feature. |
Hyperlinks and references
| Option in the Panel | What it does |
|---|---|
| Hyperlink may use non-descriptive text | Flags links whose visible source may require a useful hyperlink description. |
| Empty hyperlink source | Finds stray links without meaningful visible source text. |
| Vague hyperlink text | Identifies phrases such as “click here”, “read more”, or similarly context-poor wording. |
| Link may rely on colour alone | Checks whether linked text appears to lack an underline or another non-colour distinction. |
| Duplicate link text with different destinations | Finds identical visible link text leading to different places. |
| Raw URL not made into a link | Detects URL-like text that is not configured as a hyperlink. |
| Image or icon link without an accessible name | Checks linked graphics for alternative text or a useful hyperlink description. |
| Broken internal link or cross-reference | Flags unavailable or suspicious hyperlink destinations. |
Forms and interactive content
| Option in the Panel | What it does |
|---|---|
| Form field not tagged | Finds form controls that may not participate correctly in the exported structure. |
| Form field missing description | Checks for a useful description or tooltip. |
| Button missing description | Checks buttons for a useful description or tooltip. |
| Form field order | Prompts manual verification of field and tab order in the exported PDF, because layout inspection alone cannot prove it. |
| Animation detected | Requires manual review of animated content and its export behaviour. |
| Multi-state object detected | Warns that not all object states necessarily export accessibly. |
| Other interactive content | Identifies content that needs accessibility review in the exported PDF. |
Hidden content, colour, and layout techniques
| Option in the Panel | What it does |
|---|---|
| Hidden or non-printing content | Flags content that may be intentionally excluded or unexpectedly absent from export. |
| Colour-only meaning | Looks for wording suggesting that information is identified only by colour and requests manual confirmation. |
| Multiple spaces for layout | Finds repeated spaces used for alignment. Use tabs, indents, tables, styles, or frames instead. |
| Spacer or empty paragraphs | Finds empty paragraph runs used to create vertical space. Use paragraph spacing or layout controls instead. |
Export a report
You must first run an accessibility check before exporting the results. Once you have run the check in the panel, follow the steps below to export the results
- Select Export Report.
- Choose the result types to include: Errors, Warnings, Review, and optionally Passed checks.
- Choose whether to Exclude hidden issues.
- Choose Summary report or Detailed report.
- Select Export.
- Choose a filename and save location when prompted.
Reports are saved as standalone HTML files and normally open in your default browser after export. The suggested filename is `highlander-accessibility-report.html`.
If InDesign cannot present a save picker because file permission is unavailable, the plugin saves a timestamped HTML file in its plugin data folder and reports the location.
Summary and detailed reports
Both report types include document details, Accessibility Readiness, priority counts, quick wins, common issue types, recommended next steps, and the findings selected in the export dialog.
The detailed report adds fuller result information, including affected objects/pages and suggested actions where available. Use it for remediation work or handover; use the summary version for a shorter stakeholder overview.
An exported report reflects the latest in-panel preflight. Run Refresh after changing the InDesign document and export a new report rather than treating an old report as live.
Recommended remediation workflow
- Fix errors likely to cause PDF/UA failures, particularly missing title, missing alternative text, missing export tags, missing table headers, and overset text.
- Refresh the preflight and address remaining errors.
- Resolve warnings in the suggested fix order.
- Inspect every Review result and approve only those you have verified.
- Export a detailed report for your records or remediation handover.
- Export the InDesign document as a tagged PDF with the intended accessibility options.
- Inspect reading order, tags, alternative text, tables, links, forms, bookmarks, language, and document title in the PDF.
- Validate the PDF with PAC or another current PDF/UA checker.
- Test important documents with assistive technology and human users where appropriate.
Troubleshooting
The checker says no licence is activated
Open Licence Info, enter the purchase email and licence key, accept the agreement, and select Activate. Confirm that the email matches the order exactly.
Activation fails
- Check the internet connection.
- Remove accidental spaces before or after the key.
- Confirm that the purchase email is correct.
- Deactivate an old installation if the activation allowance is full.
- Check whether a firewall or proxy blocks access to the licence service.
Licence validation fails while offline
Reconnect and use **Licence Info > Check Licence**. A temporary connection failure can use the seven-day offline grace period, but a rejected, expired, or deactivated licence must be resolved before checking can continue.
The panel says to open a document
Open the InDesign file and make its document window active, then run the preflight again.
A finding does not navigate to an object
Some results apply to the document, an export preference, a style, or content that InDesign cannot select directly. Follow the finding’s object name, page, explanation, and suggested action manually.
A result looks like a false positive
Automated checks deliberately flag uncertain patterns for review. Inspect the content in context. Correct it if needed; if it is acceptable and shown as a Review result, approve it. You can mark a result shy for display or reporting purposes, but shy does not mean fixed.
Report export is unavailable or saves somewhere unexpected
Allow InDesign to access the folder you select. If the file picker is unavailable, the plugin uses its private data folder and shows the saved location in the status message.
The exported PDF still fails validation
The plugin checks the source InDesign document, not every transformation made during PDF export. Confirm that tagged-PDF creation, bookmarks, hyperlinks, language, title display, Articles order, and tab-order options are enabled, then inspect and remediate the resulting PDF.
A check could not be completed
The panel continues running other checks when a document property is unavailable. Save the document, restart InDesign, update the plugin, and retry. If the same check continues to fail, record the InDesign version, plugin version, document type, and displayed error for support.
Privacy and network use
Licence activation and validation send the licence key and an installation identifier to the licensing service. The purchase email is checked against the customer email returned by that service. Update checking contacts Highlander’s version service. Accessibility checks run against the open document inside InDesign; reports are written to the location you choose.
Getting support
Highlander Accessibility Checker is provided by Highlander Training Ltd. For updates, training, consultancy, and support information, visit: https://www.highlander.co.uk