How do I make my PDF accessible?

ACM TOCE requires that submission PDFs be screen readable, so that readers who are blind, low vision, dyslexic, or with ADHD can access all text, tables, and images. The author guidelines state the requirement; this page provides step-by-step instructions for meeting it.

LaTeX

Fortunately, the LaTeX community has made enough progress that producing a tagged PDF has become much easier. Use version 2.19 or above of the ACM LaTeX template, which significantly improves accessibility. Even with the current template, you still need to manually adjust some settings in the source code, as follows.

Tell LaTeX to tag

This enables a significant amount of tagging support:

\DocumentMetadata{tagging=on,
   tagging-setup={math/setup=mathml-SE},
   pdfstandard={A-4f,UA-2},
   lang=en-US
}

Add image descriptions

Images are just pixels to some users with disabilities. While an imperfect standard, having a label helps. Add image descriptions with alt in an \includegraphics command as follows:

\includegraphics[width=0.25\linewidth,alt={Macro photo of a green frog's head and hands}]{frog.jpg}

Use data tables

Data tables are interpretable by a screen reader and should be used as the default unless you have a truly compelling reason. If you do have such a reason, it may be argued with in peer review.

\tagpdfsetup{table/header-rows={1}}
\begin{tabular}{l|r}
Item & Quantity \\\hline
Widgets & 42 \\
Gadgets & 13
\end{tabular}

Use the LuaLaTeX compiler

Tagging is quite new and comes from the compiler itself, so using an older version will make the document inaccessible. The default LuaLaTeX compiler in Overleaf is sufficient for accessibility support. Note that users that want to experiment further can opt into Overleaf's labs mode to try newer versions of the compiler. In internal testing in 2026, the differences were minimal.

Microsoft Word

Word can produce reasonably accessible PDFs, but will require manual checking. It is possible to produce Word documents without tags, so authors may need to do manual adjustments in the document and in conversion to PDF.

Reporting Standards templates

The journal's Reporting Standards (JARS) templates now include accessibility support, so if you start from one you get most of the above for free.

The LaTeX templates already set \DocumentMetadata for tagging and \tagpdfsetup{table/header-rows={1}} for tables; you still need to add an alt description to each \includegraphics. Compile them with LuaLaTeX. They require version 2.19 or later of the ACM acmart class and deliberately do not bundle a copy of it, so Overleaf and current TeX distributions give you the up-to-date one — do not add an acmart.cls next to main.tex, as a local copy overrides the good one.

The Word templates carry the accessibility instructions inline: use the template's heading styles, build tables with Word's table feature rather than pasting images, add alt text to every image, set the document title and language, and check the result with Review → Check Accessibility before exporting.

The templates are maintained at acm-toce/documentation; write the Editor if something in them is not working for you.

More tips

See SIGCHI's guidance on accessible submissions for tips.