AX/4E titleiichecklist.com
The free ADA Title II web accessibility checklist

FREE TITLE II READINESS QUIZ · PDFS

Are your public PDFs actually readable?

A required form, agenda, budget, policy, or notice is posted online, but a screen reader can't read it. A PDF can be 'posted' and still not be meaningfully accessible, and the Title II document exception is far narrower than most entities assume. Five scenarios show where your documents stand.

April 26, 2027Large public entities (population 50,000 or more)
April 26, 2028Small entities and special district governments
WCAG 2.1 AAThe required standard for web content and mobile apps

Preexisting documents posted before your compliance date (April 26, 2027 or 2028) are excepted ONLY if they aren't currently used to apply for or access services and haven't been updated. New documents must conform from day one.

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QCould this happen to us? The 5-scenario quiz

Two minutes, no email required. Each scenario is real and each has an easy next step. "Not sure" counts as no, because if you're not sure, nobody owns it yet.

1. Are your public PDFs readable by assistive technology?

What if: A required form, agenda, budget, policy, or notice is posted online but cannot be read by a screen reader.

Why it matters: A PDF can be 'posted' but still not meaningfully accessible. Posted is not the same as available.

2. Do you know which of your documents are current-use versus genuinely archived?

What if: Someone assumes the whole document library is covered by the archive exception. A resident needs one of those 'archived' forms today.

Why it matters: A form residents fill out today is never excepted, no matter how old, and updating a document voids its exception.

3. Are your fillable forms actually labeled, not just fillable?

What if: A form works fine in Acrobat with a mouse, but a screen reader announces every field as 'edit text' with no label.

Why it matters: Fillable-but-unlabeled is the single most common government document failure.

4. Do remediated PDFs pass a real check, not just the export button?

What if: The 'accessible' export from an untagged template has no reading order, no alt text, and no language set.

Why it matters: Export buttons inherit the template's problems; validation is what catches them.

5. Could your highest-traffic PDFs just be web pages instead?

What if: Staff remediate the same newsletter PDF every month, forever.

Why it matters: Accessible HTML is usually cheaper to maintain, better on mobile, and better for search than perpetual PDF remediation.

How the document exception actually works

Five exceptions exist; this is the one entities get wrong. It covers conventional electronic documents posted before your compliance date, but the moment a document is used by residents to access a current service, or is updated, the exception is gone. Date posted is not a defense for an application form.

The PDF traps

Scanned image PDFs with no text layer; 'accessible' exports from untagged templates; forms fillable but unlabeled; agendas and minutes that are current-use; and archive sections staff keep linking from active pages.

What's the easy next step?

You don't need to fix everything this month. You need a list, an owner, and a start. The free checklist gives you all three: 5 plain-language items for whoever runs the office, 10 technical items for whoever runs the website.

Get your Title II checklist Start with a simple readiness review

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Questions people ask

Are old PDFs exempt from the Title II rule?

Only if posted before your compliance date AND not currently used to access services AND not updated since. The exception is narrower than most entities assume.

What does an accessible PDF require?

Tags with logical reading order, alt text, labeled form fields, title and language set, sufficient contrast, and validation with a tool like PAC plus a screen-reader pass.

Should we remediate PDFs or convert to HTML?

For high-traffic content, accessible HTML usually wins. Remediate the PDFs that genuinely must stay PDFs.

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