Beta · human review required

Document accessibility

Documents are one of four equal accessibility pillars alongside LMS, web, and media. Aelira scans supported files, reports evidence-bounded findings, proposes only eligible fixes for review, and re-scans the review copy so you can see what closed, what stayed open, and what remains manual.

Where documents sit in the product

Documents is one of four equal pillars in Aelira. The other three are LMS integrations, web page scanning, and media. The pillars cooperate through shared findings and workflows, while each can operate independently; none is treated as the product on its own.

Documents — PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and LaTeX source. This page.
LMS — Canvas is production-verified, Brightspace is beta, and Blackboard Learn and Moodle are experimental.
Web — public and authenticated pages, scanned against WCAG 2.1 AA.
Media — video and audio transcription and caption review.

Australian institutions work under DDA 1992, DSE 2005, AS EN 301 549:2020, WCAG 2.1 Level AA. There is no federal deadline; whether a given document meets a standard is a determination your institution makes.

What is covered, by format

Five formats are in scope today. Anything not listed here is not covered yet — if a format matters to you and is missing, that is a roadmap conversation, not a hidden feature.

Document formats Aelira covers, what it checks, what it can change, what a person must decide, and where each is documented
Format	What it checks	What it can change	What a person decides	Documented in
PDF	Tag structure, reading order, alt text presence, text layer on scanned pages, and table structure.	May update metadata and bookmarks and apply eligible structure, heading, list, table, and figure alt-text changes when the file exposes a safe target.	A person reviews OCR output, proposed alt text, and reading-order findings to verify that they match the page and its intended semantics.	PDF remediation docs
DOCX	Heading hierarchy, images and alt text, tables, fake lists, link text, language and title, SmartArt, and embedded objects.	May set eligible image alt text, apply heading styles, convert fake lists to list formatting, mark first-row headers, replace targeted link text, and set language and title.	Whether the resulting semantics express the author’s intent; SmartArt and embedded objects remain manual review and are not rewritten.	Documents docs
PPTX	Image alt text, text/background contrast, slide titles, optional image-of-text OCR, and animation and media signals.	May set eligible image alt text, adjust text colour when foreground/background data is available, and add missing slide titles.	Reading-order findings produce guidance for manual review; Aelira does not structurally reorder shapes. Images of text and media captions or transcripts also remain review work.	PowerPoint docs
XLSX	Sheet names, table and header structure, chart and image alternatives, merged cells, colour-only cues, frozen panes and navigation, pivot tables, and conditional formatting.	May rename a generic sheet, format or create a table with a first-row header, add a missing chart title, append text indicators for recognized colours, and freeze panes.	A person verifies inferred ranges and headers, chart-title meaning, colour semantics, formulas, pivots, and package fidelity.	Documents docs
LaTeX	Document metadata, language declaration, figures, tables, equations, and link text in the .tex source.	Keeps your .tex source as the source of truth and may improve metadata, language declaration, figure descriptions, table structure, equation output as MathML with ARIA labels, and link text.	Mathematical intent — an ARIA label can read out cleanly and still describe the wrong thing.	LaTeX and MathML docs

How a document moves through Aelira

Step 1Scan
Scan the file and report findings only, including the location of each issue.
Step 2Remediate
Eligible fixes produce a remediation outcome. A pending managed artifact is published only when at least one fix is applied, there are zero manual and failed issues, an output exists, and verification passes.
Step 3Review
Inspect the artifact and file, make every required fix decision terminal, and confirm that at least one fix is accepted.
Step 4Validate
Verification runs before artifact publication. Inspect approval_blockers and can_approve, then approve or reject the artifact. LMS or source writeback is separate and conditional.

Human review and limitations

Document remediation is in beta. A remediated file is a draft for review, not a finished document.

AI-generated fixes — alt text especially — are flagged for human review rather than applied silently. A reviewer who knows the subject decides whether a description carries the meaning the author intended.
When a source cannot be read — an image that will not load, a corrupted file — Aelira leaves the issue open and flags it for human review instead of writing placeholder or invented text.
Complex tables, nested figures, and scanned handwriting are the cases most likely to need manual work after remediation.
Aelira produces findings, fixes, and re-scan evidence. Whether a document meets a standard is a determination your institution makes, with your own accessibility staff.
Coverage is bounded to the five formats above. Support scope and response targets are set in writing per agreement, not implied by this page.

Go deeper

Try the interactive demo

Run a sample document through a scan and see the findings format.

Open the demo

Documents documentation

The open-source documentation hub for document remediation.

Read the docs

PDF remediation

The PDF-specific walkthrough, including what manual remediation involves.

LaTeX accessibility

How .tex source is handled, and where MathML with ARIA labels comes in.

Document remediation docs in github.com/Aelira-AI/aelira-core (opens in a new tab)

Where documents sit in the product

Documents — PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and LaTeX source. This page.

LMS — Canvas is production-verified, Brightspace is beta, and Blackboard Learn and Moodle are experimental.

Web — public and authenticated pages, scanned against WCAG 2.1 AA.

Media — video and audio transcription and caption review.

What is covered, by format

Five formats are in scope today. Anything not listed here is not covered yet — if a format matters to you and is missing, that is a roadmap conversation, not a hidden feature.

Document formats Aelira covers, what it checks, what it can change, what a person must decide, and where each is documented
Format	What it checks	What it can change	What a person decides	Documented in
PDF	Tag structure, reading order, alt text presence, text layer on scanned pages, and table structure.	May update metadata and bookmarks and apply eligible structure, heading, list, table, and figure alt-text changes when the file exposes a safe target.	A person reviews OCR output, proposed alt text, and reading-order findings to verify that they match the page and its intended semantics.	PDF remediation docs
DOCX	Heading hierarchy, images and alt text, tables, fake lists, link text, language and title, SmartArt, and embedded objects.	May set eligible image alt text, apply heading styles, convert fake lists to list formatting, mark first-row headers, replace targeted link text, and set language and title.	Whether the resulting semantics express the author’s intent; SmartArt and embedded objects remain manual review and are not rewritten.	Documents docs
PPTX	Image alt text, text/background contrast, slide titles, optional image-of-text OCR, and animation and media signals.	May set eligible image alt text, adjust text colour when foreground/background data is available, and add missing slide titles.	Reading-order findings produce guidance for manual review; Aelira does not structurally reorder shapes. Images of text and media captions or transcripts also remain review work.	PowerPoint docs
XLSX	Sheet names, table and header structure, chart and image alternatives, merged cells, colour-only cues, frozen panes and navigation, pivot tables, and conditional formatting.	May rename a generic sheet, format or create a table with a first-row header, add a missing chart title, append text indicators for recognized colours, and freeze panes.	A person verifies inferred ranges and headers, chart-title meaning, colour semantics, formulas, pivots, and package fidelity.	Documents docs
LaTeX	Document metadata, language declaration, figures, tables, equations, and link text in the .tex source.	Keeps your .tex source as the source of truth and may improve metadata, language declaration, figure descriptions, table structure, equation output as MathML with ARIA labels, and link text.	Mathematical intent — an ARIA label can read out cleanly and still describe the wrong thing.	LaTeX and MathML docs

How a document moves through Aelira

Step 1Scan

Scan the file and report findings only, including the location of each issue.

Step 2Remediate

Eligible fixes produce a remediation outcome. A pending managed artifact is published only when at least one fix is applied, there are zero manual and failed issues, an output exists, and verification passes.

Step 3Review

Inspect the artifact and file, make every required fix decision terminal, and confirm that at least one fix is accepted.

Step 4Validate

Verification runs before artifact publication. Inspect approval_blockers and can_approve, then approve or reject the artifact. LMS or source writeback is separate and conditional.