Streamlining Document Accessibility: How to Save Time and Reduce Risk by Working Smarter

For many organizations, inaccessible documents are a significant but hidden source of legal and operational risk. For example, consider that just one non-compliant PDF can trigger a demand letter or lawsuit. Now, multiply that risk by the tens, hundreds, or even thousands of documents spread across your digital portfolio. And addressing compliance gaps is only becoming more urgent amid tightening regulations, including new rulemaking under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The status-quo approach to document compliance—reactively remediating issues after publication—only adds to organizational challenges. When accessibility is treated as an after-the-fact fix, teams grapple with inconsistent outputs, growing backlogs, delayed deliverables, and mounting costs for outsourced remediation.

Thankfully, there’s a much more efficient, cost-effective approach: build accessibility into document creation from the start.

In this blog, we explain why reactive document accessibility efforts fall short, what you gain by adopting a proactive strategy, and how LevelDocs makes it simple and scalable to embed accessibility into your document production process.

What’s wrong with the status quo?

In most large organizations—from government agencies and higher education institutions to healthcare and financial services providers—document creation is distributed across roles.

Finance, legal, human resources (HR), communications, sales, incident response (IR), and program teams produce new documents every day, often starting from a blank file.

And when accessibility isn’t built into that process, problems inevitably make their way into live content. That means every financial report your company posts, every feature sheet your sales team shares, and every piece of documentation posted to your site presents new risks.

So, why is it so challenging to create accessible files when you stick to the status quo?

Specialized knowledge is required.

Many authors lack the knowledge to correctly apply structural elements like headings, alt text, tables, and reading order to ensure documents meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) or PDF/UA requirements—and some aren’t aware that documents must be accessible in the first place.

Teams that do prioritize accessibility often rely on built-in tools like Microsoft Word’s Accessibility Checker. While a useful starting point, such tools only provide limited insight on document compliance. These limitations lead to guesswork and rework for document authors and make it challenging for accessibility teams to enforce consistent standards.

Teams lack compliant templates or guided workflows.

Document authors rarely have access to accessible templates or clear, repeatable workflows for producing compliant content. As a result, accessibility teams must remediate files individually, starting from scratch each time. That means accessibility often becomes a late-stage bottleneck for sales materials, proposals, and customer-facing documents.

Reliable validation isn’t available.

Document authors have no reliable way to confirm compliance before publishing. This raises the risk of inaccessible content being shared externally, or sensitive material being sent outside the organization for remediation.

When a high-stakes document must be accessible—as is often the case with regulatory filings, financial reports, patient communications, investor decks, RFPs, and customer deliverables—these files land in an accessibility bottleneck.

Internal teams get overloaded, and external vendors get pulled in. Deadlines tighten, costs rise, and sensitive or regulated content gets pushed outside the organization to meet compliance requirements. Business continuity, deadlines, and risk reduction are suddenly at odds.

The advantages of a proactive approach

Building accessibility into the document authoring process from the start—through practices like equipping teams with accessible templates, clear guidance, and tools for reliable validation—is far more effective, and sustainable, than fixing issues after the fact.

And the benefits are immediate.

Consistent, predictable outcomes

When authors use accessible templates and have the necessary resources to independently validate their work, every department can deliver to the same standard. Processes finally become repeatable, and outcomes become consistent, even across thousands of distributed authors.

Stronger governance and reduced risk

Moving accessibility into the document authoring process in a structured way reduces exposure to legal and operational risk. Because outputs are consistent, accessibility and compliance leads can more easily enforce conformance to standards like WCAG. And sensitive or regulated content stays in-house, preserving confidentiality.

Faster throughput and lower cost

In a proactive approach to document accessibility, issues are resolved upstream—reducing time-consuming late-stage rework and removing bottlenecks. That means there are no delays waiting for accessibility fixes, and no rush fees for last-minute vendor requests. Sales materials, proposals, and customer-facing documents move more quickly and predictably through the pipeline.

Shift to proactive document accessibility with LevelDocs

LevelDocs brings proactive accessibility into Microsoft Word (and soon, PowerPoint), so authors can produce compliant documents without specialized expertise. At the same time, it gives leaders the control and consistency to ensure accessibility across the organization. Here’s what you stand to gain:

Real-time, in-context guidance for non-experts

LevelDocs guides authors step-by-step through their work, ensuring accessibility decisions happen during document creation—not as an afterthought. This empowers everyone at your organization, regardless of prior accessibility knowledge, to create compliant documents and reduces reliance on specialists.

Simple, scalable auto-remediation

Hard-to-fix issues like headings, tables, reading order, and alt text can be addressed with just a few clicks. This eliminates bottlenecks and accelerates throughput for every team.

Native integration and organization-wide consistency

LevelDocs makes adoption seamless by mirroring the Microsoft Office experience. Plus, configurable policies, validation reports, and enforcement controls ensure that every document—across every department—meets WCAG and PDF/UA standards.

Auditability and in-house control

By providing teams with structured, verifiable, repeatable processes for ensuring document accessibility, LevelDocs makes it easier for compliance teams to enforce consistent standards. Sensitive content stays securely stored within the organization, and RevOps teams avoid costly, last-minute remediation cycles that slow down revenue-critical workflows.

Experience LevelDocs in action

With LevelDocs, accessibility becomes a scalable, predictable, and integrated part of document creation—not a barrier at the finish line.

Ready to eliminate bottlenecks, reduce risk, and accelerate throughput with proactive document accessibility? Request a demo of LevelDocs today.