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How PAC Conquered the World of Accessibility

written by

Miriam dos Santos Coelho

published

June 13, 2024

When working on PDF accessibility, you can't overlook "PAC." Here you can read about its origins and the key milestones. "PAC in Numbers" demonstrates just how relevant accessibility is and how the checker contributes to this effort.

How It All Started

When the first version of the PDF Accessibility Checker (PAC) was released in March 2010, no one could have predicted the success that lay ahead for this tool. The very first PAC 1 Beta version focused on syntax checking and already featured the highly appreciated screen reader preview functionality.

A detailed report feature was introduced with PAC 1.3, released in 2012. This made identifying problem areas much easier.

After PDF/UA was established as an ISO standard in 2012, PAC 2 was released in 2014 with an additional feature: it could check a document's PDF/UA conformance. This was a world premiere: for the first time, accessibility could be demonstrably proven, answering the question, "Is my document PDF/UA-compliant?"

PAC 3 was followed by PAC 2021, which has since supported testing in line with PDF/UA and WCAG 2.1 AA. This brought further ease to all creators and users of accessible documents.

Because PAC primarily focuses on the technical elements of accessibility, a manual (visual) review is still necessary. However, PAC is evolving here as well: since November 2023, the PAC 2024 version offers Quality Checks to save time and effort during manual assessments.

The success story of PAC is grounded in the commitment of many individuals and organizations that have contributed financially, materially, or ideologically over the years to make a free testing tool for PDF accessibility possible according to the latest international standards. The Foundation “Zugang für alle” with Markus Riesch as the former managing director played a particularly vital role. Without their efforts, PAC likely wouldn’t exist in its current form.

PAC in Numbers

In November 2023, PAC 2024 was released. Whether it is the new design or the new features, PAC is now being used more actively for document accessibility testing.

Since the latest release, documents have been reviewed in 53 different countries worldwide.

World map. Many parts of Europe, North America and South America are colored blue. Some countries in Asia and a few countries in Africa are colored blue. — World map: Where is PAC used?

Alongside organizations and users still relying on older versions, over 6,000 people have downloaded the latest version of PAC in recent months..

Additionally, PAC’s website has been visited over 20,000 times in recent months, with users actively researching its content. This indicates the growing interest in accessibility tools and the accelerating importance of digital accessibility.

(May 2024)