PL/PDF v5.31 can now generate Tagged PDF documents directly from Oracle PL/SQL.
But what is a Tagged PDF?
A normal PDF describes where text, images and graphics appear on a page. A Tagged PDF also describes what that content means: headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, figures and their logical reading order.
In that sense, PDF tags are similar to semantic HTML.
This is essential for accessibility. Screen readers and other assistive technologies use the document structure to understand how content should be read and navigated. Tagged PDF is the technical foundation of PDF/UA, the ISO standard for accessible PDF documents.
Accessibility requirements are also becoming increasingly important legally. In the EU, the European Accessibility Act has applied to covered products and services since June 28, 2025. In the United States, Section 508 requires accessible electronic documents in the federal environment, and US government guidance explicitly identifies tags as the structural foundation of accessible PDFs.
But there is another interesting reason for tagging.
Tags were originally associated mainly with screen readers. Today they also make PDFs much easier for software, search engines, document-processing systems and AI to understand.
Instead of trying to reconstruct a document from visual coordinates, a machine can see:
Heading → paragraph → table → figure → next section
That makes the PDF not only accessible, but also more reusable and machine-readable. The PDF Association specifically notes that good tagging can improve document analysis, including AI-based processing.
With PL/PDF v5.31, Oracle applications can now generate this semantic document structure directly during PDF creation.
Accessible for people. Better structured for machines.
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