PDF guidelines

Use these guidelines to make sure your PDFs are accessible and easy for you and your community to find.

Convert a Word document to PDF

If you have an Acrobat Pro licence follow these steps in MS Word:

• click on File in the top left corner of the document window
• select Export from the drop down menu
• select Create Adobe PDF
• check the file name for the PDF file
• check Save as type displays PDF files
• click on Save.

For other workflows:

• visit the Technology 4 Learning Adobe Acrobat page
• watch the applicable video tutorial.

If your original document contained hyperlinks, after converting to PDF you will need to check that the hyperlinks still work properly. Be sure to click on each link to ensure that it goes to the correct web page.

PDF file naming

It is important to:

• use a meaningful file name, for example newsletter-term3-week3.pdf
• only use letters, numbers and hyphens in file names (other characters – like spaces, question marks, percent signs, commas and ampersands – will cause issues).

Add document properties to a PDF

Before you upload a PDF to your website, it is important that you add document properties. These properties will display basic information about the document: title, author, subject and keywords. This metadata is important for accessibility and search.

Ensure there are no quote marks or semicolons in any of the metadata fields, as these symbols can break search. Separate keywords with commas, not semicolons, for example: keyword1, keyword2, keyword3

Follow these steps to add PDF document properties (metadata):

• open the PDF
• select File
• select Properties
• populate the Title, Author and Keywords fields
• enter the Subject (use less than 150 characters to summarise the document)
• select OK
• save the document.

Check accessibility of a PDF (Acrobat Pro)

You can use the Prepare for accessibility tool to check and make a PDF accessible. It will prompt you to address accessibility issues, such as a missing document description or title, plus it looks for common elements that need further action, such as tables and images. 

Visit Create and verify PDF accessibility, Acrobat Pro for detailed instructions.

Add a PDF link on a page

Depending on which component you use, you may need to first upload your document to Assets, use drag-and-drop, or upload from your computer. Uploaded files do not automatically appear on your live website. 

Option 1 - Rich text editor

1. Upload the document to Assets
2. navigate to the page under Sites
3. add a link to the document using the Rich text editor component
4. publish the changes.

Option 2 - Download box component

1. Navigate to the page under Sites
2. add a link to the document using the download box component
3. publish the changes.