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University at Buffalo thesis accessibility requirement: what it checks and how to pass

Not affiliated with or endorsed by University at Buffalo. This guide quotes the school's public pages; if anything here differs from them, the school's pages win.

In short: Required from Spring 2027.

The rule, in the school's words

…beginning in spring 2027, all theses and dissertations submitted to UB will be required to meet digital accessibility standards.

Accessibility formatting found in the Word template is required for all submissions.

What it checks

• Alternative text for all visuals, including pictures, graphics and charts.
• Meaningful link text.
• A logical heading structure with the correct heading hierarchy.
• A logical table structure with proper table headings.
• Run an accessibility checker: Word's Accessibility Checker, or Ace by DAISY for an EPUB.
• Use “Save as PDF” rather than printing to PDF, so the accessibility features survive.

Deadlines we know

• ETD due January 8, 2027, for the February 1, 2027 degree conferral date. (source, checked 2026-10-29)
• ETD due May 14, 2027, for the June 1, 2027 conferral date. The page marks this date with a note about the Spring 2027 accessibility requirement. (source, checked 2026-10-29)

Dates change; confirm them with your graduate school.

How to pass it for free

Help University at Buffalo offers

• UB students can take Deque University's Word, PDF and EPUB accessibility courses through a SUNY agreement (login needed). Links are on the source page.

Do it yourself

In Word

1. Start from your school's Word template if it has one.
2. Make every heading with Word's built-in styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3), not with bold or bigger text. Use Word's own list buttons and Insert, Table of Contents.
3. Make tables with Insert, Table. Give each a header row: select the first row, then Table Properties, Row, “Repeat as header row at the top of each page”. Don't use tabs or spaces to line things up, and don't paste tables as pictures.
4. Add alt text to every figure: right-click it, then View Alt Text (or Edit Alt Text). Describe what the figure shows and why it matters. Mark purely decorative images as decorative.
5. Set the document title (File, Info, Properties, Title) and the language (Review, Language).
6. Run Review, Check Accessibility and fix what it lists.
7. Save as PDF, not Print to PDF, because printing drops the tags. On Windows: File, Save As, PDF, Options, and keep “Document structure tags for accessibility” ticked. On a Mac: File, Save As, PDF, and choose “Best for electronic distribution and accessibility”.

In LaTeX

1. Use a recent TeX Live (2025 or later; we used 2026) and compile with LuaLaTeX.
2. Put this before \documentclass. It is what we used on the LaTeX example below:

   \DocumentMetadata{
     lang=en-US,
     pdfversion=1.7,
     pdfstandard=ua-1,
     tagging=on,
     testphase={phase-III,math,title,table,firstaid}
   }

3. Give the PDF a title: \hypersetup{pdftitle={Your title}, pdfdisplaydoctitle=true}.
4. Add alt text to each figure: \includegraphics[alt={What the figure shows}]{file}.
5. Mark table header rows, for example \tagpdfsetup{table/header-rows={1}} before a table whose first row is its header.
6. Check that your packages work with tagging on the LaTeX Project's tagging status page. Some (TikZ wrappers, custom floats) need workarounds.

Check the result

• Adobe Acrobat Pro: Accessibility, Accessibility Check. Many schools check with this, and campus labs often have it.
• PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker): free, Windows only. NDSU treats it as authoritative.
• veraPDF: free and open source on every platform. It checks PDF/UA.
• Word's Check Accessibility only checks the .docx. Always check the final PDF too.

Or we fix it for you

If you'd rather not do it yourself, we fix the structure of your thesis without changing a word you wrote, and send a validator report with every order.

If University at Buffalo's checker rejects your thesis for an item we fixed, we refund you in full. Our checks are veraPDF (PDF/UA) plus our own implementation of Acrobat's published rules, not Acrobat itself. We report what checkers say; that isn't legal advice. Guarantee details.

Some schools have rules on third-party help or AI use. Check with your advisor or graduate school first.

Checkout isn't open yet, so you pay nothing now. The first 3 requests get the fix free, in exchange for honest feedback. We won't ask for a testimonial.

Request a fix for a University at Buffalo thesis

Sources

Checked 2026-10-29:

• Electronic Submission of Theses and Dissertations (University at Buffalo Graduate School)