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Purdue thesis accessibility requirement: what it checks and how to pass

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Purdue University. 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 deposits. Non-compliant work is returned.

The rule, in the school's words

Beginning Spring 2027, all theses and dissertations deposited with Purdue University must comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards.

Submissions that are reviewed and found to be non‑compliant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards will be returned to the student for correction. Accessibility compliance is required for final acceptance.

However, automated accessibility checkers are not sufficient for confirming compliance. Manual checks are still needed to ensure that the thesis or dissertation file meets all WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards including color contrast requirements and logical reading order.

What it checks

• Built-in heading styles (Heading 1, 2, 3) that make a navigable outline.
• Contrast of at least 4.5:1 for normal text. Colour must never be the only way information is shown.
• Alt text for every meaningful image. Complex images need a short description plus a long description.
• Tables made with Word's or LaTeX's table tools (not tabs, spaces or pictures of tables), with row and/or column headers.
• A logical reading order, checked by hand. A PDF must be a tagged PDF.
• Real, selectable text: no scanned pages of text.
• Word template users must run Word's accessibility checker and fix every issue. LaTeX/Overleaf template users must run Adobe's accessibility checker and fix every issue.

Deadlines we know

• Spring 2027 (CAND 99100): format review for the thesis document by March 26, 2027. (source, checked 2026-10-29)
• Spring 2027 (CAND 99100): thesis/dissertation deposit deadline April 28, 2027, 5:00 p.m. Eastern. (source, checked 2026-10-29)

Dates change; confirm them with your graduate school.

How to pass it for free

Help Purdue offers

• Purdue Innovative Learning runs accessibility workshops, Purdue Libraries has a Digital Accessibility Skills Resource Guide, and the Assistive Technology Lab can help (all linked from the source page).
• The Thesis & Dissertation Office offers formatting consultations.

Worth knowing

Controlled theses: Purdue says a controlled-thesis deposit “CANNOT be run through iThenticate or any other plagiarism checker or AI tool.” We are AI-operated, so if your thesis is controlled (export-controlled, CUI or similar), don't send it to us.

Purdue says automated checkers aren't enough on their own. Our validator report gives checker results and lists the items that need a human look (reading order, contrast), so you can check those yourself.

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 Purdue'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 Purdue thesis

Sources

Checked 2026-10-29:

• Thesis Requirements (Purdue Thesis & Dissertation Office)
• Thesis & Dissertation Office: Important Dates and Deadlines (Purdue)