Help & FAQ
Common questions about how DocAble works, what we fix, how to verify results in your native app, and which accessibility standards we check against.
What does DocAble fix?
When you upload a file, DocAble automatically detects and remediates accessibility issues. For a concrete sense of what the output looks like, see our Examples page — before-and-after on real course documents.
- Images & Alt Text — Every image, diagram, chart, and equation gets an AI-generated description so screen readers can convey visual content to students. Math is rendered in spoken form (e.g., "the integral from 0 to pi of sine x dx") for natural listening.
- Contrast — Text that does not meet the WCAG 2.1 AA contrast ratio is detected and recolored automatically. Solid-colored text on solid backgrounds is fixed; gradient or image backgrounds are flagged for your review.
- Structure & Titles — Missing document titles and slide titles are generated so screen readers can navigate by heading. Table header rows are marked and decorative shapes are flagged appropriately.
- Formats — PowerPoint (.pptx), Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), and PDF files are all supported. Scanned PDFs receive page-level AI descriptions. Embedded audio and video in PowerPoint get automatically transcribed closed captions (WebVTT).
- Preservation — Your original content, formatting, animations, and media are preserved. DocAble adds accessibility metadata (alt text, tags, titles, captions) without altering your design or layout.
What should I expect after remediation?
DocAble eliminates machine-detectable errors automatically. A few categories still benefit from a quick human review:
- Reading order — Complex slide layouts cannot be automatically sequenced; DocAble will flag these for manual review. Check the tab order in PowerPoint if your slides use non-linear layouts.
- Contrast on gradient or image backgrounds — DocAble fixes solid-color text contrast automatically but cannot recolor text over gradients or photos. Those will be flagged for your attention.
- Alt text quality — AI-generated descriptions are best-effort. Review them for accuracy, especially for technical diagrams, equations, and domain-specific imagery.
- Complex table structure — Tables with merged cells or nested headers may need manual adjustment after remediation.
Can I review the accessibility fixes before downloading? (PowerPoint & Word)
Yes. For PowerPoint (.pptx) and Word (.docx) documents, completed jobs offer a read-only accessibility diff-view — open it from the Review & edit button on the completion card. It is a two-pane view:
- Left pane — your document — each slide or page is rendered with overlay boxes marking every element DocAble inspected, plus reading-order badges numbered in document order.
- Right pane — Structure — a screen-reader-style list of the same elements. Selecting an overlay highlights its Structure row (and vice versa), so you can confirm what a screen reader will announce.
- Next thing to fix — a navigator button jumps to the next element that still needs attention; the only show things to fix filter narrows both panes to just those elements.
The diff-view is read-only — it shows you what was checked and what the deterministic accessibility rules flagged, comparable to the built-in Microsoft Accessibility Checker. It is not a claim of full compliance with accessibility standards; use it to review before you download the remediated file. Word documents keep their author-authored reading order (DocAble never reorders body flow); PowerPoint additionally surfaces per-slide reading order.
How does DocAble handle scanned and handwritten documents?
Scanned PDFs and handwritten lecture notes (e.g., tablet-written or photographed notes) are common in learning environments. Here's what to expect after remediation:
- What we do: Each page is analyzed by an AI vision model that generates a text description of the page content, including handwritten text, diagrams, and equations. This description is added as alt text on the page's image, making the content accessible to screen readers.
- Document title is inferred from the filename and the first page content using AI, since scanned documents typically have no embedded title metadata.
- Math and equations in handwritten notes are described in spoken form (e.g., "the integral from 0 to pi of sin x dx") rather than LaTeX or MathML, which is more natural for screen reader users.
- Accuracy: AI-generated descriptions of handwriting are best-effort. Review them for correctness, especially for technical notation, variable names, and domain-specific terminology.
- For best results, consider using your device's built-in accessibility features (e.g., Live Text on iOS/macOS, Google Lens) alongside the remediated PDF for real-time handwriting recognition.
How do I verify accessibility in my own app?
After remediating your files with DocAble, use the built-in accessibility checker in each application to review any remaining issues:
Office Formats
- Open the remediated file in PowerPoint, Word, or Excel
- Go to the Review tab
- Click Check Accessibility
- The Accessibility panel opens on the right
- Review any Errors and Warnings
- Click each issue to navigate to the affected element
- Open the remediated file in Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Go to All tools > Prepare for accessibility
- Click Accessibility Check
- Select all categories and click Start Checking
- Review the report — expand each category to see details
- Right-click issues to navigate or fix manually
Upload your remediated PDF to our built-in Editor and run veraPDF against it — an industry-supported, open-source validator for PDF/UA-1 conformance backed by the PDF Association. Results appear inline so you can review issues without leaving your browser.
veraPDF is "industry-supported, open-source" and developed with funding from the European Commission's PREFORMA project, co-led by the PDF Association. verapdf.org Open Editor →
Who is DocAble for?
DocAble is built for individual educators remediating their own course materials. If you have questions or feedback about the beta, email scholaccess@gmail.com.
Do you test your own UI for accessibility?
Yes. Our Playwright test suite drives the DocAble UI through the same accessibility primitives
screen readers and keyboard users use — getByRole, getByLabel,
getByText. If a control is missing an accessible name, our test for that control
fails and the change can’t ship.
How do new-user credits work?
DocAble is in beta and currently free to use. When you sign up, your account starts with a $5 trial credit balance — enough for around 50 PDF pages or 100 Office pages — courtesy of Prof. Davis while we sort out commercialization. Paid accounts will be available later.
In the meantime, anonymous (guest) access is always free: anyone can remediate up to 100 pages every 24 hours without signing in.
What happens to my documents? (Privacy policy)
What happens to my documents?
When you upload a file, DocAble processes it on our servers to produce a remediated version. Editing in the in-browser DocAble Editor also synchronises edits to the server so that Re-check and Save can re-run the pipeline against your changes.
Output files are available for download for 7 days; most input files are preserved for 7 days and then automatically deleted.
You can delete your account at any time from the Account page; on deletion, files are cleaned up within 7 days.
Who can see my documents? What is sent to AI?
Some document content is sent to a generative AI service provider for analysis. We have configured our use of those services such that they should not be retaining nor training on the data we send.
Do not upload sensitive, confidential, or FERPA-protected information.
Which accessibility standards do we check?
DocAble checks 69 accessibility rules across PDF, PowerPoint, Word, and Excel — grounded in three published standards: PDF/UA-1 (ISO 14289-1) for PDF structure, Section 508 (US Revised §E205, incorporating WCAG 2.0 AA) for US federal compliance, and EN 301 549 (EU v3.2.1 §10, incorporating WCAG 2.1 AA) for EU public sector compliance. We assess accessibility using veraPDF and a battery of custom checks aligned with international standards.
- What we check: structural accessibility — alt text, headings, reading order, color contrast, table headers, document language, link text, and document metadata.
- What we do not check: PDF/A archival conformance, digital signature validity, or content correctness (we do not review whether your facts are accurate).
- Automated checking cannot substitute for a full human accessibility audit.
- Legal compliance: DocAble's results do not guarantee compliance under the ADA, Section 504, or any specific regulation — that determination depends on your document's content, context, and how the law is interpreted by your institution.
Does DocAble make my documents WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliant under the DOJ Title II rule?
On April 24, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice published a Final Rule under Title II of the ADA requiring state and local government entities to bring their web content and digital documents into conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Compliance deadlines:
- April 24, 2026 — public entities with population ≥ 50,000
- April 24, 2027 — public entities with population < 50,000 and special-district governments
Short answer: DocAble addresses the document-content layer of WCAG 2.1 AA. Conformance is a layered chain — DocAble is one essential link, not the whole chain.
Of WCAG 2.1's 50 A + AA success criteria, 20 fall within static-document-authoring scope — the things that can be addressed by remediating the PDF, PowerPoint, Word, or Excel file itself. The remaining 30 SCs are properly enforced by other layers (the document viewer, the web platform, or time-based media authoring tools) and are not deficiencies in DocAble. Of the 20 in-scope SCs, DocAble currently covers 9 (45%), with 1 partial (WCAG 1.4.5 Images of Text — we deliver the screen-reader axis via verbatim transcription; the visual-reflow axis is the viewer's) and 10 documented as coverage gaps.
Compliance is a layered chain
| Layer | Who enforces | Example SCs |
|---|---|---|
| Document content (alt text, structure, contrast, language, headings, page title, table headers, reading order) | DocAble — currently 9 of 20 in-scope SCs; 10 coverage gaps tracked | 1.1.1, 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.4.1, 1.4.3, 2.4.2, 2.4.6, 3.1.1, 4.1.1 |
| Document reader (keyboard navigation, focus order, magnification, text resize) | Adobe Acrobat / PowerPoint / Word / Excel / browser PDF viewers | 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.4.3, 2.4.7, 1.4.4 |
| Web platform (navigation landmarks, portal UI, error handling) | HTML/CSS/web developer managing the document portal or course management system | 2.4.1, 2.4.5, 3.2.3, 3.2.4, 3.3.1–3.3.4 |
| Time-based media (captions, audio descriptions) | Content creator and media-authoring tools; DocAble does not receive the source media | 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.2.3, 1.2.4, 1.2.5 |
Important: DocAble's results do not constitute a legal compliance determination. Full WCAG 2.1 AA conformance under the DOJ Title II rule requires addressing all four layers of the compliance chain above. Your institution's legal counsel should confirm your specific compliance posture. DocAble is the document-content layer — a necessary part of the chain, but not a substitute for the full picture.
What does my institution need to do for WCAG 2.1 AA compliance?
What DocAble currently checks (Covered)
- 1.1.1 Non-text Content (A) — alt text on images and non-text elements
- 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A) — heading structure, table headers, encoding integrity
- 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence (A) — PDF reading-order monotonicity (struct-tree leaf page sequence)
- 1.4.1 Use of Color (A) — PPTX table columns with uniform fill and no text legend
- 1.4.3 Contrast Minimum (AA) — text contrast ≥ 4.5:1 (3:1 for large text) on solid-color backgrounds
- 2.4.2 Page Titled (A) — document title metadata present and non-empty
- 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (AA) — headings present and descriptive
- 3.1.1 Language of Page (A) — document language tag set
- 4.1.1 Parsing (A) — document well-formed and parseable
Coverage gaps DocAble is tracking
These 10 SCs are within static-document scope but not yet checked by DocAble:
- 1.3.3 Sensory Characteristics (A) — instructions relying solely on color/shape/position
- 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (AA) — PDF form field purpose annotation
- 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast (AA) — graphical objects and UI component contrast (3:1)
- 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide (A) — animated content in Office documents
- 2.3.1 Three Flashes (A) — flashing content detection
- 2.4.4 Link Purpose in Context (A) — descriptive link text
- 2.5.3 Label in Name (A) — accessible name contains visible label (PDF forms)
- 3.1.2 Language of Parts (AA) — per-span language tagging in multilingual documents
- 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (A) — form field label association
- 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (A) — accessible name completeness for form controls
The live clause-by-clause standards-coverage table is below.
What should I know before relying on the output?
DocAble is a best-effort tool, not a compliance guarantee. A few practical things to keep in mind:
- DocAble improves accessibility but does not guarantee ADA, WCAG 2.1, Section 504, or Section 508 compliance.
- You are responsible for verifying the accessibility of output files before distributing them.
- No legal liability is accepted for the results.
- Currently tested on English-language files only — other languages may produce surprising output.
- Do not upload sensitive, confidential, or FERPA-protected information.
Coverage details by clause
- ✓ Addressed — DocAble automatically remediates violations of this requirement.
- ~ Best effort — DocAble's AI addresses this requirement; manual review recommended for high-stakes documents.
- △ Detected, not fixed — DocAble detects and reports violations but does not automatically fix them.
- ◇ Planned — On the roadmap.
- ◐ Partial — DocAble fully delivers the static-file prerequisite axis of this requirement; a complementary axis (reflow, viewer keyboard handling, platform rendering) is the document reader's or platform's.
- — Not applicable — Enforced by the document reader or web platform, not the static document content.
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