PDF Accessibility Audit

You cannot fix what you cannot see. CASO Comply's SiteScan crawler finds every PDF on your website, checks each one against WCAG 2.1 AA and Section 508 standards, and delivers a detailed compliance report — so you know exactly where you stand and what to prioritize.

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What a Document Accessibility Audit Includes

Our audit goes beyond a simple pass/fail check. Every PDF is analyzed across multiple dimensions of accessibility compliance.

Document Discovery

Our SiteScan crawler traverses your entire website — following links, sitemaps, and navigation menus — to locate every PDF document hosted on your domain. No manual inventory needed.

Structural Analysis

Each PDF is analyzed for proper tag structure, heading hierarchy, reading order, and logical content flow. We identify documents that lack any tagging entirely versus those with partial or incorrect tagging.

Content Evaluation

We check for missing alt text on images, unlabeled form fields, improperly marked tables, missing document language, and absent bookmarks — every criterion that affects how assistive technologies interpret the document.

Compliance Scoring

Each document receives a compliance score from 0 to 100 based on how many accessibility criteria it meets. Scores are weighted by severity: critical issues like missing tags count more than minor omissions.

Violation Cataloging

Every specific violation is cataloged with its type, severity, page location, and the relevant WCAG success criterion. You get an itemized list of exactly what needs to be fixed, not a vague summary.

Remediation Prioritization

Documents are ranked by priority based on their compliance score, public visibility, and traffic. This lets you tackle the highest-impact documents first when resources are limited.

How SiteScan Works

From URL to audit report in four steps — no software to install, no documents to gather manually.

Step 1: Enter Your URL

Provide your website's root URL. SiteScan begins by fetching your sitemap, then follows internal links to discover all pages and subdomains.

Step 2: Automated Crawl

The crawler visits every discoverable page, identifies linked PDF documents, and downloads each one for analysis. It respects robots.txt and rate-limits requests to avoid impacting your server.

Step 3: AI-Powered Analysis

Each PDF passes through our accessibility engine, which checks for tag structure, reading order, alt text, table headers, form labels, language settings, and bookmarks.

Step 4: Report Delivery

You receive a comprehensive audit report with an executive summary, document-level scores, prioritized violation lists, and recommended remediation steps — delivered within hours, not weeks.

What the Audit Report Covers

Your audit report is a complete compliance intelligence package — actionable data for your IT team and clear summaries for leadership.

Executive Summary

A high-level overview of your document accessibility posture: total PDFs found, overall compliance rate, critical issues count, and estimated remediation effort. Designed for leadership and decision-makers.

Document Inventory

A complete catalog of every PDF discovered on your website, including file name, URL, page count, file size, and current compliance score. Sortable by any column for easy analysis.

Violation Details

For each document, a line-by-line breakdown of every accessibility violation found — categorized by type (structural, content, metadata) and severity (critical, major, minor).

WCAG Criterion Mapping

Each violation is mapped to the specific WCAG 2.1 AA success criterion it violates, so your compliance team can cross-reference against regulatory requirements and VPAT-supporting compliance documentation.

Remediation Roadmap

A prioritized action plan that groups documents by remediation complexity and public impact. Includes estimated per-document remediation cost so you can budget accurately.

Try it free — scan your website now

Our free scan crawls up to 25 pages on your website in under 60 seconds, identifies every linked PDF, and delivers a summary compliance report. Need a full-site audit? Contact our sales team to scope a comprehensive assessment.

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Manual Audit vs. Automated Audit

Manual accessibility audits have their place, but they are slow, expensive, and impossible to scale. Here is how the two approaches compare.

Factor	Manual Audit	CASO Comply Automated
Speed	A skilled accessibility specialist can manually audit 10-20 PDF pages per hour.	CASO Comply analyzes hundreds of documents per hour across your entire site.
Cost	$50-150 per document for expert manual review, plus the cost of building the document inventory.	Free initial scan. Full audit reports start at a fraction of manual audit costs.
Coverage	Typically limited to a sample of documents due to time and budget constraints.	Every PDF on your website is discovered and analyzed — no sampling, no gaps.
Consistency	Results vary between auditors. Different specialists may flag different issues or apply criteria differently.	Identical criteria applied uniformly to every document. Reproducible results every time.
Frequency	Annual or semi-annual audits are typical due to cost. New documents published between audits go unchecked.	Run on-demand or on a recurring schedule. Catch new documents as soon as they are published.
Depth	Expert auditors catch nuanced issues that require human judgment — complex reading order, ambiguous alt text, contextual heading structure.	Excels at comprehensive, rules-based checks. Flags potential human-judgment issues for expert review.

The ideal approach combines automated scanning for comprehensive coverage with targeted expert review for documents that require human judgment. CASO Comply supports both.

Know where you stand before the deadline

With ADA Title II deadlines approaching and Section 508 requirements already in effect, the first step is understanding your current compliance posture. A CASO Comply audit gives you that clarity.

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Official Resources

PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker) ↗Section508.gov ↗

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an accessibility audit?

An accessibility audit is a comprehensive review of your documents against WCAG 2.1 AA, PDF/UA (ISO 14289), and Section 508 standards. It identifies every PDF on your website, analyzes each one for accessibility violations, scores compliance, and delivers a prioritized remediation roadmap.

How long does an audit take?

The free 25-page scan completes in under 60 seconds and gives you an immediate snapshot of your compliance posture. A full-site audit depends on the scope — the number of pages and documents on your website — and is scoped through a sales conversation.

What's included in the audit report?

The audit report includes a complete document inventory, per-document compliance scores from 0 to 100, an itemized breakdown of every accessibility violation by type and severity, WCAG success criterion mapping, and a prioritized remediation roadmap with estimated costs.

Is the audit free?

The 25-page scan is completely free — no credit card, no commitment. It crawls up to 25 pages on your website, identifies linked PDFs, and delivers a summary compliance report. Full-site audits that cover your entire web presence require a sales conversation to scope and price.

What happens after the audit?

After the audit, we provide a prioritized remediation plan based on document traffic, legal significance, and compliance severity. You can move directly into remediation with CASO Comply's AI-powered PDF remediation service, which automates tagging, alt text, reading order, and validation. Visit casocomply.com/services/pdf-remediation to learn more.