Converting Your Document to PDF

Converting from Word to PDF

When you convert your document to a PDF from Word, required features can be lost if you use 3rd party plugins or print your document to PDF. Additionally, certain versions of Word do not convert to PDF correctly.

Determine Your Version of Word

First, open Word and navigate to File -> Account (Windows) or Word -> Account (Mac).

• Word 365: your document can be safely converted to PDF with Word's built-in exporter.
  • Word 365 is available to students and employees at no charge; see the IT knowledge base entry for installation information and instructions. Only the desktop version of Word 365 should be used with your disquisition; the browser version of Word 365 is not a full version of Word and should not be used to export your disquisition to PDF.
• Office LTSC: if your document contains images or equations, you will need to install Word 365 or find a PC with it installed already. Word 365 is available to students and employees at no charge; see the IT knowledge base entry for installation information and instructions.
  • Office LTSC is commonly installed on NDSU-owned PCs, such as those in offices, computer labs, and laboratories.
  • Disquisitions without images or equations may be safe to export to PDF from Office LTSC.
    • If your disquisition contains images, you will need to open it within Word 365 and export it to PDF.
    • If your disquisition contains equations, they will need to be removed and recreated within Word 365.

Export Your Document to PDF

1. Navigate to File -> Export -> Create PDF/XPS Document.
2. Click the Investigate Accessibility button to perform a preliminary check for issues like missing alt-text.
3. If there are no items listed under "Errors" in the Accessibility Checker pane, return back to File -> Export -> Create PDF/XPS Document and click the Create PDF/XPS button.
4. In the Publish as PDF dialog box, click Options.
   1. Set "publish what" to "document". Do not export your document with markup enabled. Note that "document showing markup" is enabled by default and you may need to set this option whenever your export to PDF.
   2. Enable both "create bookmarks using headings" and "document structure tags for accessibility". We also recommend enabling "optimize for image quality".
5. Click Publish to save your document in your desired location.

Once exported, check your PDF's accessibility readiness with the PDF Accessibility Checker. PAC is not perfect, and a "clean bill of health" may be symptomatic of larger issues; for example, if images are tagged incorrectly, PAC will not look for bounding boxes or alt-text that should be associated with a <figure> tag. However, there are no substitutes for PAC--the accessibility checkers in Word, PDF editors, or Blackboard do not perform full checks of the WCAG 2.1 AA requirements.

Converting from LaTeX to PDF

The Center for Writers LaTeX disquisition template is fully compliant with the NDSU Graduate School Publication Guidelines, including the WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility requirements. If you have received our template from your department, advisor, or colleague, we recommend updating from our repo.

When using our template, use only LuaTeX (a.k.a. LuaLaTeX) to convert your document to PDF. In Overleaf, this can be set from File -> Settings -> Compiler -> LuaLaTeX. For desktop compilers, see the LaTeX Tagging Project for more information on installing LuaTeX and producing an accessible PDF in your preferred platform.

We do not recommend using older LaTeX templates to draft your disquisition, as they are unlikely to be compatible with our guidelines.