Before linking to a document on your webpage:

Content should be presented as native web content instead of linking to a PDF. PDFs are unpleasant to read online and pose a risk for accessibility violations.

If the need arises to link to a document on your website, do not upload a Word doc to the media library. Documents should only be displayed on a webpage if the intention is for someone to print the document. If you must include a document, it should be presented as a PDF. This also ensures your formatting doesn’t get altered or the content edited. Additionally, not everyone has the programs to open specific file types on their device, but everyone can open a PDF.

Jump to guidance by content type:

Forms | Event Flyers | Committee Minutes | Newsletters | Annual Reports | Student Projects (comps) | Archives | Course Materials | Faculty Publications

How we handle PDF documents and other digital files on our website is an increasingly important issue given digital accessibility requirements set by the Department of Justice.

While PDFs have long been a go-to for sharing reports and flyers, documenting meeting minutes, archiving newsletters, soliciting form-based communication, and sharing other key documents, the legal and regulatory landscape is changing. To remain compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — specifically under Title III and the recent updates to Title II — we must ensure that every document we host is accessible to all users, including those who use screen readers or other assistive technologies. 

A screen reader helps people who have difficulties seeing access and interact with digital content, like websites or applications, via audio or touch. The technology reads out loud what is on the screen, and allows people to navigate through websites and applications via a speech output. 

Utilize our Quick Start Guide: PDF and Digital Document Audit & Checklist for ensuring your digital documents meet accessibility standards.

Why This Matters Now

The Department of Justice recently updated Title II regulations, setting a firm standard of WCAG 2.1 AA compliance for public institutions. While Carleton falls under Title III, these new standards are likely to be used by courts as the benchmark for private colleges as well. To protect the college from potential lawsuits and, more importantly, to create an inclusion web experience, we need to transition away from inaccessible PDFs.

Is your PDF actually accessible?

A PDF is not accessible just because it can be opened on a computer. For a PDF to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards, it must be more than a digital printout.

An accessible PDF is…

  • Tagged: Contains a hidden tag tree (like HTML) that defines headings, paragraphs, and tables.
  • Searchable: Text can be highlighted, copied, and searched.
  • Descriptive: Includes Alt Text for all meaningful images, charts, and graphs.
  • Navigable:  Has a logical reading order and a set document title/language in the metadata.

An accessible PDF is not…

  • A Scanned Image: A picture of text that a screen reader cannot read or search.
  • Untagged: A document that has no structure, leaving screen readers to guess the reading order.
  • Visually Dependent: Uses only color or font size to convey meaning (e.g., “Required fields are in red”).
  • Missing Metadata: Shows a file name like final_draft_v2.pdf instead of a clear document title.

Guidance by Content Type

Depending on the type of content you manage, our recommendations differ:

  • Forms (applications, sign-ups): PDF forms are notoriously difficult to make accessible.
    • Recommendation: Use Gravity Forms (our WordPress plugin) or Google Forms. These are natively accessible and easier to manage. If a PDF form is truly unavoidable, follow Adobe’s specific guidance on accessible forms.
  • Event flyers: These are often just images of text.
    • Recommendation: If you post a flyer on the web, you must include all the same information (date, time, location, description) in plain text on the webpage itself. Flyers should be treated as supplemental visual interest (e.g., an image with the event post), not the primary source of information.
    • Make sure all of your public events are shared with the campus calendar.
  • Committee minutes: These are usually text-heavy and can also contain sensitive information.
    • Recommendation: Move this content to a shared Google Drive folder where you can control permissions and maintain text-based Google Docs. 
    • Reminder: Files in the media library are discoverable, even if they are behind a password-protected page, if someone has the file link or file name.
  • Newsletters: 
    • Recommendation: Rather than sending these, and then archiving as PDFs, structure newsletters as an issued publication in WordPress, which you can then link to via newsletter template. Please check the Newsletters and HTML Emails page for information about newsletter options, and submit a ticket if you’d like to discuss your newsletter strategy.
      • Archive former PDF issues: If you’ve been distributing your newsletter as a PDF, you should adopt the recommended issued publication option in WordPress going forward. You can retain the former PDF issues, as long as you meet the archive exception:
        • Content created before April 2026, and
        • Content kept only for reference, research, or recordkeeping, and
        • Content is kept in a designated archive area of the website, and
        • Content has not been changed or altered since it was archived
  • Annual reports: These often contain complex charts and graphics.
    • Charts and graphics are okay as long as we have alt text describing what they are communicating.
    • Recommendation: Pivot to web-based annual reports where possible. If a PDF is necessary, it must be remediated using the Adobe Acrobat Action Wizard to add tags and Alt Text.
  • Student research and projects: These often contain complex charts, graphics, and complicated formatting.
    • Again, charts and graphics are okay as long as we have alt text describing what they are communicating.
    • Recommendation: Consider what content is necessary and digestible in web format. Either leave these off or include a short blurb and a link to where someone can learn more.
    • COMPS: The Library has a repository of student comps projects, called Digital Commons. If your department’s website has an archive of student comps that needs to be taken down, please reach out to comps.group@carleton.edu to discuss backing up any projects that are not yet found in Digital Commons. You can retrieve a list of projects that have been submitted to the repository by selecting your department from the list.
      • Please note that Digital Commons does not provide public access to the projects hosted there. Instead, it provides descriptive information about each project, such as author name, graduation year, and project title. Access to projects in the repository is limited to authors, Carleton faculty, designated department staff, and select Library and institutional research and assessment staff. Faculty can also submit requests on behalf of current students to access projects in the repository. 
  • Archived Documents: We recommend backing up and deleting old content that is no longer linked or current. If you must retain access to older, inaccessible PDFs, they should be placed behind a login. For questions on archiving and materials, contact the Carleton Archives (archives@carleton.edu).
  • Course materials — Consult with Academic Technology to ensure course-related materials — whether in Moodle or elsewhere — are accessible.
  • Faculty publications — Contact the Library’s Digital Collections Advisory Team (digitalcollections@carleton.edu) regarding PDFs of faculty publications

Social media, videos, and graphics

Graphics for Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook must be accessible, too.

  • Always add Alt Text natively within the platform.
  • Avoid posting graphics that contain essential details (like URLs or event dates) without repeating those details in the post’s caption.
  • For hashtags, use #PascalCase (e.g., #CarletonCollege) so screen readers can distinguish the words.
  • Videos with speaking or lyrics should always include captions for accessibility. Please see the YouTube and Video Captioning page for more information and instructions.
  • Review Carleton’s Social Media Accessibility guidelines.

Why AI Fixers aren’t enough

Some have asked if emerging AI tools (like automated screen readers or document “fixers”) will eventually make these manual efforts moot.

While AI is a powerful assistant that can help us remediate files faster (by suggesting tags or Alt Text), it is not a magic button. AI often “hallucinates” document structure, creating a technical shell that looks compliant but reads like “alphabet soup” to a user. Legally and ethically, the responsibility of accessibility rests on us as the content creators. We must provide a compliant source document rather than relying on an end-user’s software to fix our errors.

Practicing good digital hygiene

We’ve all become more aware that digital storage comes with an environmental footprint. It’s also well documented that people navigate websites differently than printed documents, often scanning for needed information rather than reading. To these points, on top of accessibility concerns:

  • Carleton’s WordPress media library should not be a substitute for digital file storage.
  • Carleton’s site is quite large and contains more content than many college websites. It is good practice to sunset content that is old, can be Googled/easily found elsewhere, or lives elsewhere on Carleton’s site.
  • Cleaning up our sites will ultimately save on editing efforts and loading speeds.

Resources

We don’t expect you to be accessibility experts overnight. Here are resources to help you:

Communications

April 21, 2026 | Email to WordPress Superusers

Subject: Official Extension of ADA Title II Deadlines

Greetings SuperUsers,

On April 20, 2026, the Department of Justice officially published an Interim Final Rule extending the compliance deadlines for web and mobile accessibility by one year, moving the date to April 24, 2027. This extension is intended to allow for further public comment and potential refinements to the 2024 final rule.

While this provides us with additional time to make sure we’re meeting accessibility requirements, it is not a grace period to pause our efforts. Our goal has always been to provide an equitable, accessible digital experience for all our audiences.

What this means for you:

  • Keep the momentum: Continue remediating existing content and prioritizing accessibility for new and future digital materials.
  • Proactive, not reactive: Reducing our overall digital footprint and creating accessible content from the start is our goal.
  • General ADA rules apply: We are still legally obligated to provide effective communication and accessible services today, including video captions, alt text, and accessible documents.

Please continue to utilize our digital accessibility website, and resources like DubBot, to help ensure your website—and Carleton’s overall digital and web presence—remains accessible for all.  

Thanks for all the work you’ve already done! 

Best
Sarah Scofield, on behalf of the Digital Accessibility Working Group

April 2, 2026 | Carleton Today Leadership Note from Carolyn Livingston

April 2, 2026 | Carleton Today Leadership Note from Carolyn Livingston

Upcoming digital accessibility deadline

As shared in the January 29 issue of Carleton Today, the deadline to comply with the updated Department of Justice regulations (WCAG 2.1 AA), which set a firm legal benchmark for digital accessibility, is this month. As we work to ensure Carleton’s digital presence reflects our mission of inclusion, we are shifting how we manage documents on carleton.edu. Most content currently hosted as a PDF (newsletters, flyers, forms, minutes, reports) should be transitioned to standard webpages (HTML). Webpages are more accessible, mobile-friendly, and better for SEO (search engine optimization). Site maintainers should plan to complete their website audit for PDF usage by April 15, with a clear plan established for pivoting to accessible content using provided recommendations.  

—Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students Carolyn H. Livingston, on behalf of the Digital Accessibility Working Group

March 16, 2026 | Email to WordPress Superusers

Subject: Recording Available: DubBot Tutorial Session

Greetings, 

Thank you to those who attended last week’s DubBot Training session. If you were unable to attend, a recording of the session is available on our Digital Accessibility website. I strongly encourage using DubBot to help with your accessibility audit before the April Title II deadline! 

Reminders:

Please reach out with any DubBot questions or if you need access!

Best,
Sarah

March 5, 2026 | Carleton Today: Happening Around Campus

March 5, 2026 | Carleton Today: Happening Around Campus

FACULTY & STAFF

Thursday 3/12 | DubBot Tutorial and Training Session | Virtual, 10–11 a.m.

Join for a tutorial and training session on how to utilize Carleton’s web accessibility checker, DubBot. DubBot regularly scans websites for accessibility issues, broken links, and more. This tutorial is designed for all website editors, whether you’re just getting started or want a refresher on best practices.

February 26, 2026 | Email to WordPress Superusers

Subject: DubBot Tutorial and Training Session

Hello all, 

As we continue to encourage site maintainers and editors to use DubBot to audit their websites for accessibility before the Title II deadline in April, I’ll be hosting a virtual DubBot tutorial and training session on Thursday, March 12, at 10 a.m. 

In this session, we’ll cover:

  • What is DubBot, accessing and reviewing your dashboard
  • How automated “crawls” work and what they check for
  • How to read and prioritize DubBot reports
  • Fixing common issues like missing alt text, link text problems, heading structure, and PDFs

If you’re new to DubBot—or if you’d just like a refresher—please feel free to join. 

Best,
Sarah

February 16, 2026 | Email to WordPress Superusers

Subject: DubBot resources for identifying accessibility issues

Greetings, SuperUsers —

I’m reaching out to share a few new resources to help aid site editors and maintainers as you begin auditing for digital accessibility compliance. With the April 2026 deadline for ADA Title II compliance approaching, ensuring our sites meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards is a top priority.

The following resources have been added to our digital accessibility website:

  • DubBot & WordPress integration: We’ve activated the DubBot Plugin on our WordPress sites, so you can now see flagged items directly on your webpages! This eliminates the need to toggle back and forth between your DubBot dashboard to view the individual flagged items.
  • DubBot PDF auditing: The DubBot dashboard now provides a PDF inventory that displays a simple-to-navigate list of the PDFs included within your website. 
  • PDF Content Guide: As we continue to receive questions surrounding what to do with PDFs on websites, we’ll continue adding to our content guide to help in your decision-making process — recent additions to the content guide include past COMPS and faculty publications. More to be added shortly! 

Reminders of next steps:

Reach out with any questions,
Sarah

February 6, 2026 | Email to WordPress Superusers

Subject: Digital Document Accessibility Session Recording

Greetings, SuperUsers! 

Thank you to those who attended our Digital Document Accessibility session on Monday. It was great to hear your questions, and hopefully, our team was able to provide some clarity on the changing Title II regulations and what that means for you as you maintain/edit your Carleton website(s) moving forward, particularly as it pertains to PDF usage.

If you were unable to attend, the session recording is available for viewing on our Digital Accessibility website.

Next steps/action items:

Additionally, we’ve received a handful of questions surrounding newsletters. As a reminder, rather than sending these and then archiving as PDFs, we encourage you to structure newsletters as an “issued publication” in WordPress, which you can then link to via a newsletter template. Please check the Newsletters and HTML Emails page for information about newsletter options, and submit a ticket if you’d like to discuss your newsletter strategy.

Thank you,
Sarah

January 29, 2026 | Carleton Today Leadership Note from Carolyn Livingston

January 29, 2026 | Carleton Today leadership note from Carolyn

Digital documents and ensuring digital accessibility

As we work to ensure all community members — including those using screen readers or mobile devices — can fully access our website content, we need to shift how we manage documents (including PDFs) on carleton.edu. This transition is largely driven by updated Department of Justice regulations (WCAG 2.1 AA), which set a firm legal benchmark for digital accessibility. To meet these standards and reduce institutional risk, we must significantly reduce our reliance on static PDFs and image-heavy documents on our website, and ensure that all videos and social feeds have proper captions and alternative text. Carleton has a digital accessibility working group actively looking into best practices, areas of highest risks, and recommendations for increasing our overall institutional digital accessibility. Site owners, maintainers, and others creating web content can join us virtually on Monday, February 2 at 2 p.m. to discuss these recommendations and content exceptions. 

Due to our distributed website ownership model, this work will require a full campus effort, especially on behalf of site owners and maintainers. We are here to support you through this shift. Please mark your calendars for these key dates:

  • Q&A Session: Site owners, maintainers, and others creating web content can join us virtually on Monday, February 2 at 2 p.m. to discuss these recommendations and content exceptions. We’ll record this session and post it to our digital accessibility website.
  • Site Audit: Please review your WordPress Media Library by April 15 to identify documents that can be transitioned to webpages or deleted. We encourage you to review guidance on how to audit existing documents and recommendations for moving forward, including our quick start guide.

In addition to the resources and documentation available on our digital accessibility website, the College partners with DubBot, an automated software that routinely scans our websites for web accessibility (as defined by WCAG 2.1), as well as broken links, spelling, readability, search ranking, etc. All website editors are invited to use DubBot. If you’d like to begin receiving DubBot reports, submit a ticket!

We realize this is a big, important shift, and we thank you all in advance for your partnership.

—Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students Carolyn H. Livingston, on behalf of the Digital Accessibility Working Group

January 21, 2026 | Email to WordPress Superusers

Subject: Digital documents & ensuring digital accessibility

Good afternoon, Carleton website owners and maintainers,

As we work to ensure Carleton’s digital presence reflects our mission of inclusion, we are shifting how we manage documents on carleton.edu.

Why this is happening now: The Department of Justice recently updated Title II regulations, setting a firm standard of WCAG 2.1 AA compliance. While these specifically target public institutions, they are the legal benchmark for private colleges under Title III. To protect Carleton from legal risk and ensure all users — including those using screen readers — can access our content, we must significantly reduce our reliance on PDFs and other inaccessible digital documents. 

Note: This is NOT related to the Carleton website redesign project, but that project is timely as all our sites are being reviewed in preparation for a new standard theme.

Our Core Recommendation: Web first, PDFs last, reduce content where possible

Going forward, most content currently hosted as a PDF (newsletters, flyers, forms, minutes, reports) should be transitioned to standard webpages (HTML). Webpages are more accessible, mobile-friendly, and better for SEO (search engine optimization).

View Carleton’s Digital Accessibility Guide & PDF Recommendations

What this means for you:

  • Forms: Going forward, as much as possible, transition to Gravity Forms or Google Forms. When PDFs are needed, ensure they are accessible (tips at link above).
  • Event flyers:If you post a flyer, you must include all the same information (date, time, location, description) in plain text on the webpage itself. Keep flyers off of websites, unless used as an event image on a calendar posting where all of the same information is already included. Flyers are meant to be printed and posted, not used for web copy.
  • Newsletters: Rather than sending and archiving these as PDFs, structure newsletters as an “issued publication” in WordPress, which you can then link to via newsletter template. Please check the Newsletters and HTML Emails page for information about newsletter options, and submit a ticket if you’d like to discuss your newsletter strategy.
  • Social media: Always add Alt Text to images and use #CamelCase for hashtags.
  • Videos: All videos posted to Carleton’s site must have captions. Please see the YouTube and Video Captioning page for more information and instructions.
  • AI is not a “Magic Button”: While AI tools can help make documents accessible, they often “hallucinate” document structure. We remain legally responsible for providing compliant source documents.

Next Steps:

  1. Attend our Q&A session: Join us virtually on Monday, February 2, 2026, at 2 p.m. to discuss these recommendations, as well as content exceptions.
  2. Audit your site: By April 15, please filter your WordPress Media Library by “Documents” and evaluate if that content can be moved to a webpage or deleted.
  3. Clean up: Make a plan for pivoting to accessible content based on your site audit based on provided recommendations. Sunsetting old, unlinked content improves site speed and reduces our environmental footprint.

We know there are many other competing priorities right now, so we thank you in advance for assistance in helping make Carleton’s digital presence accessible and in-line with our legal obligations.

Thanks,

Sarah Scofield, on behalf of the digital accessibility working group:

  • Carolyn Livingston, ADA coordinator and vice president for student life and dean of students
  • Sam Thayer, director of the Office of Accessibility Resources, IEC
  • David Huyck, senior web application developer, ITS
  • Mavis Gustafson, enterprise software business analyst, ITS

December 12, 2025 | Email to WordPress Superusers

Subject: Drop-in session recording, Asana reminders, PDFs

Hi all,

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to our first drop-in session on Tuesday. For those who couldn’t attend, I’ve added the recording to the website redesign project page.

I’ve also added a couple of other sections to the FAQ page of that site. To highlight some details:

Asana notifications and access:

  • We are utilizing Asana to centralize project communication with individual site maintainers during the website redesign. Thank you in advance for your time and review throughout this work!
  • If you do not already have an account with Asana: You will receive (or already have received) an invite to join Asana, and you’ll be prompted to make an account. 
  • You’ll likely receive a notification that you are a part of a free trial, but please do not set up any billing info. Your account will simply revert to a free account after the trial period ends. 
  • This invitation will not add you to the Asana Enterprise Pilot Program that a portion of campus staff is exploring. You are being added as a collaborator on tasks only, which prevents automatic enrollment of an Enterprise-level license — this usage of the tool allows us to workaround licensing limitations. Instructions for setting your notifications are on the FAQ page. 
  • If you have questions about using Asana, please reach out to our team.

Some notes on design as we move through sidebar migration:

  • For those of you who have already had some page content migrated, you’re probably noticing that this makes your page longer and events and news blocks more spacious.
  • We acknowledge that this phase of prep work for the new theme will make some things look less polished as we straddle the old theme and new one, which is why we’re striving to keep this phase as short as possible.
  • The positive tradeoff: In most cases, you won’t need to stop editing your site, or edit content in two separate places, during the transition to the new theme.

PDFs:

  • PDFs were and will continue to be a big topic of conversation. We’ll get a PDF-specific session scheduled for January, since we know this conversation involves more than just site maintainers. 
  • We’re also working on putting together more detailed guidance that we can share ahead of that session. There is quite a bit of nuance on this topic — and we use PDFs in a variety of ways — and so we want to be as clear and helpful as possible.
  • PDF flags for accessibility are not related to our website redesign, but rather, to the accessibility requirements of Title II and Title III; many institutions, beyond just colleges and universities, are anticipating an increase in litigation once Title II actually comes into effect and want to do our best to minimize exposure, and of course, make our site accessible. We just happen to be flagging more issues now, as we move through multiple sites in prep for the redesign.

Thank you, all, and have a good weekend ahead,
Kallie