Different documents require different checks.
Municipal Form Doctor examines publicly discoverable PDF, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents using automated checks designed for each format. The goal is not to treat every file the same — it is to identify accessibility-readiness indicators and document-health concerns that help staff decide what deserves review first.
PDF documents
PDF-specific checks look for searchable and extractable text, scanned or image-only content, document structure and tagging signals, title and language metadata, and form-field labeling.
Document-health checks also flag legacy municipal links, stronger document-age evidence, and applicable print, mail, fax, hand-delivery, or other offline workflow language.
Word documents
Word analysis focuses on accessibility-readiness indicators such as document title and language metadata, image alternative text, and visually styled headings that may not use semantic heading styles.
It also checks for legacy municipal links, document-age evidence, and manual or offline workflow language.
Excel workbooks
Workbook checks examine images that appear to lack meaningful alternative text, generic worksheet names, populated worksheets with a blank starting cell, merged cells that overlap structured table data, and observable spreadsheet error values.
Applicable document-health checks cover legacy municipal links, document-age evidence, and manual or offline workflow indicators.
PowerPoint presentations
Presentation checks look for images that appear to lack meaningful alternative text and slides without usable titles.
Duplicate slide titles, weak or non-descriptive hyperlink text, and embedded audio or video are surfaced as review candidates because determining whether they are actually accessible can require human judgment.
Document-health checks also cover legacy municipal links, document-age evidence, and manual or offline workflow indicators.
Accessibility readiness and document health stay separate.
MFD uses format-specific automated indicators to produce an accessibility-readiness assessment while evaluating operational document-health concerns separately.
That separation matters. An old link or outdated workflow may deserve attention, but it should not artificially make a document appear to have a stronger accessibility problem.
What requires human review?
Automated diagnostics can identify signals and review candidates, but they cannot answer every accessibility question.
For example, human judgment may be needed to determine whether alternative text accurately communicates an image's purpose, whether a presentation's reading order is logical, or whether embedded media provides appropriate captions or transcripts.
MFD helps narrow the review queue. It does not replace human accessibility testing.
What doesn't MFD inspect?
Municipal Form Doctor is a public-document diagnostic service, not a website accessibility scanner.
MFD does not test webpage color contrast, HTML or ARIA implementation, webpage keyboard navigation, or other website-level accessibility requirements.
It also does not provide full WCAG conformance certification, make legal determinations of ADA compliance, or silently modify or remediate an organization's source documents.
What does the assessment produce?
MFD turns publicly discoverable documents into a prioritized review queue. Findings include evidence and source references so staff can understand what was detected and return to the public document for review.
The final assessment includes an executive summary, accessibility-readiness findings, separate document-health findings, prioritized review information, and a public document inventory.
Know what is out there. Know where to look first.
Municipal Form Doctor discovers public documents, applies format-specific diagnostics, and turns the results into a practical review queue.
Request Assessment →