How tagged PDF generation works in PL/PDF

1. Initialize the document. Start the normal PL/PDF generation workflow.
2. Enable tagged mode. PLPDF.setTagged initializes the tagged-document model and creates the root structure objects.
3. Set the document language. PLPDF.setDocLanguage supplies language metadata that is written into the generated PDF.
4. Generate document content. Supported PL/PDF content operations participate in the tagged output and are connected to logical structure elements.
5. Link page content with MCIDs. PL/PDF writes marked-content identifiers into page streams and maintains the corresponding structure relationships.
6. Finalize the PDF. PL/PDF writes the structure tree, parent tree, marked-document catalog entries and the normal PDF document objects into the final BLOB.

Enable tagged PDF in PL/SQL

Tagged output is enabled inside the normal PL/PDF generation workflow. Set the document language, generate content as usual and return the final PDF as an Oracle BLOB.

declare
  l_pdf blob;
begin
  plpdf.init;

  plpdf.setTagged;
  plpdf.setDocLanguage('en-US');

  plpdf.NewPage;
  plpdf.SetPrintFont('Arial', null, 14);

  plpdf.PrintText(
    p_x   => 20,
    p_y   => 30,
    p_txt => 'Accessible customer statement'
  );

  plpdf.SendDoc(l_pdf);
end;
/

This example enables the tagged-document structure and document-language metadata. The quality of the final accessible document still depends on the structure and content produced by the application.

Accessibility is a document workflow, not a checkbox

Enabling tagged mode gives the PDF a machine-readable structural foundation, but accessible output should still be treated as part of document design and quality assurance.

• Set the correct document language.
• Use meaningful logical structure for the generated content.
• Review reading order and navigation behaviour.
• Provide meaningful descriptions for non-text content where required.
• Use fonts and text encoding appropriate for reliable text extraction.
• Validate representative final PDFs with the accessibility tools and standards required by your deployment.