Requirements

Links have descriptive link text and are constructed with appropriate tags.
[WCAG 2.4.4, WCAG 2.4.4 (PDF11), WCAG 2.4.4 (PDF13)]

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For the best results, make your links as accessible as possible before converting the document to a PDF as fixing links in Adobe Acrobat doesn't always remove all related accessibility barriers.

Directions

Links Illustrated Guide (ppt)

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Open the document in Adobe Acrobat.
Open the View menu, hover on Show/Hide, hover on Navigation Panes, then select Tags to open the Tags panel, which will appear in the left sidebar.
- Pro Tip: In the Tags panel, open Options and make sure that Highlight Content is checked so that, when you click on a tag in the Tag panel, the matching element(s) in the document are highlighted.
If the tag panel says No tags available, retry the Conversion process or, if that is not possible, complete the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Tagging process.
Save the document with a new name in case it is not possible to do these steps without creating new problems. Shortcut: Shift + Ctrl/⌘ + S
Attempt to update any links that don't quickly and adequately describe the link's destination when taken out of context (ex: "click here," "click," "here," "read more," "more," and URLs). If they are all descriptive, skip to step 8.
1. Open the Edit PDF tool and select the Edit button.
2. Put the typing cursor between the first and second character in a link then type the new text.
  (If the document is expected to be printed, consider adding a shortened URL created via tools like bit.ly and bit.do after the linked text)
3. Delete the extra text and reposition the text box as needed.
4. Repeat steps 5.1 through 5.3 for all other undescriptive links then continue to step 6.
If the underline is incorrectly sized, do the following. Otherwise, skip to step 7.
If all links in this document are only indicated by a change of color, you may need to do 6.1 before going to step 7.
1. Select the link text and use the Underline button in the Edit PDF panel to underline it.
2. Create an image that can be used temporarily as a place marker and save it to an easy to find location.
3. Click Add Image, choose the place marker image, click on the document.
4. Select the place marker image and use the Arrange Object button to Send to back.
  - After doing this, if at any point you find yourself unable to select the image, select the element on top then use the same tool to move that element to the back. Repeat as needed.
5. Place the place markers where the text box corners are/should be.
6. Select the text box then use your keyboard’s direction keys (▲, ▼, ◄, or ►) to move the box in a single direction.
  (Counting the number of times you press the directional key may help as much as the place markers)
7. Select the line, delete it, then move the text back.
  - Be sure to only select the line (there should be no white space in the selection). If you select a larger box and delete that by mistake, open the Edit menu, select Undo, and try again to delete only the line.
8. Repeat steps 6.1 through 6.7 for all other appropriate links. Then delete any place marker images and continue to step 7.
Save the document as a separate file with a new name. Shortcut: Shift + Ctrl/⌘ + S
In the Edit PDF toolbar, expand the Link menu, and select Add/Edit Web or Document Link.
Add link boxes to any links currently missing them. Otherwise, skip to step 10.
1. Open the Edit menu then select Manage Tools.
2. Add then open the Accessibility tool.
3. In right sidebar, select Reading Order.
4. Check the Show page content groups checkbox and uncheck the Display like elements in a single block checkbox.
5. If several paragraphs are in the same gray Reading Order box, complete steps 9.6 and 9.7 for each paragraphs before you do these steps for links.
6. Select the link text by holding the mouse button down and dragging diagonally to draw a box around it.
  - After selecting, if there are undesirable elements outlined in pink, hold the Ctrl Or Command key and draw a box around those elements to unselect.
7. Press the Text/Paragraph button in Reading Order to separate the link text.
8. Repeat steps 9.6 and 9.7 for other links.
9. Open the Edit PDF tool, expand the Link menu, and select Add/Edit Web or Document Link.
10. Use your mouse to draw a box around the link text (like you did in step 9.6). Releasing the mouse button will open the Create Link pop-up.
11. In the pop-up, set Link Type to Invisible Rectangle, set the appropriate Link Action (usually Open a web page), and then click Next.
12. Add the appropriate information for the link destination.
  - If you later find that the destination was set incorrectly, right-click on the link box, choose Properties, open the Actions tab, and make the correction.
If you completed the sub-steps of steps 5, 6, or 9, do the following. Otherwise, skip to step 11.
1. For links that wrap to the next line and don’t have a subsequent link box, copy-paste / duplicate the initial link box.
  - If you don’t see the boxes, open the Edit PDF tool, expand the Link menu, and select Add/Edit Web or Document Link.
2. Resize and reposition the link boxes to align with link text/image as appropriate.
  - Try to make the boxes as large as appropriate so that those on touchscreens can activate them more easily.
3. In the Tags panel, open the Options men, select Find, set the Find field in the pop-up to Unmarked Annotations, select the Search Document option, and then click Find.
4. Verify that the element found is a link then click Tag Element then click Find Next and repeat this cycle for remaining links (for non-links, press Find Next instead of Tag Element to skip that element).
  - If a New Tag pop-up appears, set Type to Link then click OK.
In the Tags panel, find all link related tags and determine if they are correctly ordered and nested. If they are correctly arranged, skip to step 12.
1. Drag-and-drop tags to appropriate locations in Tags panel. See the Correct Nesting Tip in Additional Tips for reference.
  - If you currently have <P> tags that contain only the link text you can temporarily nest them inside another <P> tag at this point. We'll fix them in the following steps.
  - At this time, if you have a link that wrapped to a new line, put all of the link text in the first tag. We'll give the subsequent link box link text in step 12.
2. Select any incorrectly nested <P> tags that only contain link text, right-click on the tag(s), select Properties, set Type to Link, then click Close.
For links that still have URL link text or for link boxes that do not have link text (because the text wrapped), right-click on the link's Link-OBJR, select Properties, open the Tag tab, and enter descriptive text in the Actual Text field.
- For URL link text, add Actual Text that will make text-to-speech programs read the URLs as expected.
  example: upcea.edu is read as "U P C E A dot E D U" instead of "up-see dot ed-you."
Open the Edit menu then select Manage Tools.
Add then open the Action Wizard tool.
Select the Make Accessible option, click Set Tab Order Property, click the Close button above the right sidebar, and click Yes in the pop-up.
Test that the links work and fix whatever links aren't working. (If possible) use keyboard commands to conduct the test.
- Keyboard Testing:
  1. Click or navigate (F6) to the top of the document.
  2. Press Tab to go from link to link (PDFs that have form fields and buttons will have other interactive elements in the tab order too.).
  3. Press Spacebar or Enter / Return to open the link.
Save the file. Shortcut: Ctrl/⌘ + S
Follow the directions on Reading Order to make sure that the document will be read in the correct order by screen reader programs.

Additional Tips

If you anticipate that your audience will print your document, you may choose to use a link text format like:
Clemson University Accessibility Portal (http://bit.ly/CUA11y)
If it is necessary to include a link with URL link text, we strongly recommend that you use a link shortener like bit.ly or bit.do to minimize the amount of information a text-to-speech user has to listen to when coming across the link.
When working with a copyrighted document that does not allow you to convert linked URLs into descriptive links, it is possible to add "Alternate Text for Links" to the link's OBJR element.
Correct Link nesting:
- <P>
  - [any text in the paragraph that occurs before the link]
  - <Link>
    - [link text or image]
    - Link - OBJR
  - [any text in the paragraph that occurs before the link]
The authors of this guide need to do more research on the correct way to handle links that wrap to a new line, so please don't be surprised if the directions above eventually change in that regard. In writing these directions, we leaned towards creating links with too much information instead of links with too little information. If your audience provides valuable feedback in this area, please share it with accessonline@clemson.edu.
In a 2010 blog post by Ted Page, it was said that filling the Actual Text field caused links to no longer function. In November 2019, we did not experience this in our testing. However, if this becomes an issue again, we would recommend using the Alternative Text field instead. Additionally, if you fill out the Actual Text field and find that one or more screen readers aren't reading the information you entered, you may want to use the Alternative Text field instead but only after trying the test again after closing and reopening the document.

Last Updated Fall 2020