Why are PDFs not as good as Word documents when it comes to accessibility and screen readers?
Answer
PDFs are often less accessible than Word documents because they require extra formatting to work properly with screen readers. Many PDFs are saved as image-based files, which makes text unreadable by assistive technologies unless optical character recognition (OCR) or tagging is applied. Even when text is selectable, PDFs can lack the proper heading structures, alt text, and logical reading order that screen readers depend on. In contrast, Word documents retain built-in accessibility features such as headings, lists, tables, and alt text, which make them more reliably readable. While accessible PDFs can be created, doing so usually requires additional steps and specialized knowledge.