A screen reader doesn't know your PDF is in French. It defaults to the user's system language and reads French text with English phonetics. The output is unusable.
The fix is one metadata field. Set the document language, save, done.
Why the language field matters
Accessibility tools — JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver — read PDFs aloud. They pick voice and pronunciation rules from the document's language tag. Without it, they guess.
Search engines also use language metadata. A French PDF marked as English may rank for the wrong queries or not at all.
Set the language in metadata
Open the PDF in Flint's editor, find the metadata section, and set Language. Use an ISO 639-1 code — `en` for English, `fr` for French, `de` for German, `es` for Spanish.
For regional variants, use the full tag: `en-GB`, `en-US`, `fr-CA`. This matters for accessibility tools that voice different accents.
Tag individual sections if multilingual
If your document mixes languages — a French body with an English appendix — the document-level language sets the default and per-section tags override.
This is more involved and benefits from a proper accessibility tool. For most documents, setting the document-level language is enough.
FAQ
Will setting the language change how the PDF looks?
No. It's metadata only. Visual content is unchanged.
What if my PDF has no dominant language?
Pick the language of the body content. Tag separate sections individually if you need full accessibility compliance.
Does setting language help SEO?
For PDFs hosted on the web, yes. Search engines use the language tag to match queries to the right documents.
Can I set the language on an old PDF?
Yes — open it in the editor, set the language, save. The change applies immediately.
Language metadata is small but matters for accessibility and discoverability. Set it in Flint's editor once per document.