Accessible PDFs for the documents your district publishes
ReachPDF does the part that is mechanically decidable — structure tags, drafted alt text, standards validation — then hands you a short, specific list of the calls it cannot make for you.
ReachPDF is in closed beta. Signing in is a magic link sent to your work address, and only allowlisted district domains can get one today.
Board-Packet-2026-09-15.pdf18 pages
Needs review · 3Cedar Ridge Water District
Board of Directors — Regular Meeting Agenda
Wednesday, September 15, 2026 · 6:00 p.m. · District Office
1. Call to order and roll call
2. Public comment
3. Consent calendar
3.1 Minutes of the August 18 regular meeting
3.2 Warrant register for August 2026
4. Operating budget report
Figure
Figure 2. FY 2026 operating expenditure by department.
Page 4 of 18
Checked automatically
Score 86%— 43 of 50 checks passed.
4 failed · 3 flagged for a person.
Waiting on you
3 findings still need your decision.
Alt textPage 4
Figure has no alternative text
Figure 2 carries no description, so it is silent to a screen reader.
Drafted, awaiting your approval
“Bar chart comparing FY 2026 operating expenditure across five district departments.”
Table structurePage 7
Table has no header row
The rate schedule's first row is tagged as data, so no column names are announced.
Reading orderPage 11
Two-column section may read out of order
The tag order runs across the columns instead of down them.
What it does
Three of these run without you. The fourth is the part that deliberately does not.
Structure tagging
Headings, paragraphs, lists and tables are written into a real structure tree, so a screen reader moves through the document in reading order instead of guessing from the layout. The document title, its language and the tagged flag are set in the same pass.
Alt text you approve
Every figure is extracted from the tagged file and given a drafted description, 150 characters at most, written to be read aloud. Nothing is written into the PDF until you approve the wording or replace it with your own.
Validation and a computed score
An accessibility checker runs against the tagged file. The compliance score is the checks that passed divided by the checks that ran, taken from the report rather than estimated, and the full pass-and-fail list comes with it.
A review queue, not a black box
Whatever the checker cannot settle becomes a typed finding with a page number: alt text, reading order, table structure, headings, decorative images. You approve, correct or skip each one, and the file is checked again afterwards.
ReachPDF works on born-digital PDFs up to 50 MB. Scanned and image-only files are turned away at upload with the reason stated — there is no OCR, and handing back a file with no text in it would help nobody.
How it works
Six steps, in this order, every time. You are involved in one of them.
- 1
Upload and triage
You upload a PDF. Before anything else runs it is checked for type, size and whether it is born-digital. A scanned or image-only file is refused at this point, with the reason, rather than three minutes later.
- 2
Tag the structure
Structure tags are applied across the whole document, so headings are headings, lists are lists and tables are tables in the file itself rather than only on the page.
- 3
Draft alt text for every figure
Each figure is pulled out of the tagged file and given a short drafted description. Nothing is written into the PDF yet; the drafts are held for you.
- 4
Validate and sort the findings
An accessibility checker runs and produces the compliance score. Everything it flags is turned into a typed finding with a page number, so what is left is a list rather than a report you have to interpret.
- 5
Your review
You work the findings one at a time: approve the drafted wording, correct it, or skip an item that does not apply. This is the only part that needs a person, and it is meant to be short.
- 6
Finalize and validate again
Your decisions are written into the file — approved alt text onto the figures, plus the document title, the language and the tagging flags. The checker runs a second time and you get a fresh score, the full report, and the PDF to publish.
The deadline is April 26, 2028
The Department of Justice’s Title II web rule requires state and local government entities to make their web content accessible, and the agendas, packets, minutes, budgets and resolutions posted on a district website are web content.
The date moved by a year. The backlog did not.
Special district governments, and every public entity serving fewer than 50,000 people, were first given until April 26, 2027. An interim final rule published in April 2026 pushed that group out one year, to April 26, 2028. Entities serving 50,000 people or more moved by about a year as well, to April 26, 2027 — no group kept the date the 2024 rule gave it.
If your district planned against the 2027 date, the target moved and the plan probably did too. A district that posts a packet every month will post two dozen more before the new date, and each one is a document somebody may have to read with a screen reader.
What this is measured against
- ADA Title II
- The Department of Justice rule that sets the date and applies it to state and local government entities, special districts included.
- WCAG 2.1 AA
- The technical standard the rule names. It covers the documents on your website, not only the pages around them.
- Section 508
- The federal standard, which points at the same success criteria. A district already answering a 508 question is answering most of this one.
- PDF/UA
- The PDF-specific standard. ReachPDF cross-checks against it with veraPDF where that validator is installed on the worker — a second opinion rather than the primary one.
Access today
ReachPDF is in closed beta with a small number of districts. That is the whole state of it, said plainly.
- How you get in
- A magic link sent to your work address. There is no password to keep and nothing to install.
- Who can sign in today
- Allowlisted district email domains only. There is no open sign-up yet, and a link requested from an address outside the list will be refused.
- What it costs
- Nothing is being sold yet. There is no price list to quote, no trial to start and no card to enter.
Not on the list yet? Email hello@reachpdf.com and we will add your district to the beta list.