RGAA: what is really changing for businesses

The RGAA has 106 criteria. Put like that, the subject is enough to put off any marketing manager or SME owner. But for a business, the real question is not knowing these 106 criteria by heart. It is understanding what they actually change in the way you design and publish your digital content.

In this article, I go through the questions I am asked most often in meetings, with simple answers.

The RGAA in a nutshell

The RGAA (Référentiel général d’amélioration de l’accessibilité) is the French method for checking that digital content can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities. Its current version, 4.1.2, groups 106 criteria into 13 themes: images, colours, tables, links, structure, forms, navigation, downloadable documents…

Each criterion is checked through specific tests. This is what makes it possible to say whether a document is fully, partially or not compliant.

RGAA and the European Accessibility Act: what is the difference?

This is the most common confusion, and it is understandable.

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is a European directive that has applied since 28 June 2025. It defines who must make their products and services accessible.
The RGAA is a technical framework. It defines how to measure the accessibility of digital content.

One sets the obligation, the other is a tool to check that you meet it.

Does this apply to my company?

It all depends on your size and your business. There are three scenarios.

Your turnover in France exceeds €250 million. You are subject to Article 47 of the 2005 French law, in the same way as public bodies. Your websites and online services must comply with the RGAA, and you must publish several documents: an accessibility statement, a multi-year plan and an action plan for the current year.

You offer certain services to consumers. Since June 2025, the EAA has applied in particular to e-commerce, banking services, passenger transport, electronic communications and e-books. In this case, the obligation applies to you, whatever your size, except in the case below.

You are a microenterprise. If you have fewer than 10 employees and your annual turnover or balance sheet total does not exceed €2 million, you are exempt for services.

What if you only sell to businesses? The EAA mainly targets services for consumers. But your key accounts and public-sector clients are paying more and more attention to the accessibility of the documents they receive. Better to see it coming.

What are the risks?

For companies subject to Article 47, Arcom (the French audiovisual and digital communications regulator) carries out checks. After a formal notice, it can impose a penalty of up to €50,000 for failing to meet accessibility rules, and up to €25,000 for other obligations, such as not publishing a statement.

For services covered by the EAA, checks are mainly carried out by the DGCCRF (the French consumer protection authority). A breach is a fifth-class offence, meaning a fine of up to €7,500 per offence for a company, doubled for a repeat offence.

Beyond fines, there is also your image: a customer who cannot read your catalogue will not necessarily complain. They will simply go elsewhere.

What is an accessibility statement?

It is a public page that states the compliance level of your website or service: fully, partially or not compliant. It lists the content that is not yet accessible, any exemptions, and how to contact you if there is a problem.

It is based on an audit carried out according to the RGAA. For companies subject to Article 47, the compliance level must also be shown on the home page.

What about my PDFs?

Yes, they are concerned. Many companies discover this along the way. The RGAA includes a dedicated criterion: every office document offered for download must, where necessary, have an accessible version. A compliant website that offers non-accessible PDF catalogues or brochures therefore sees its compliance level drop.

Under the EAA, office documents published before 28 June 2025 are exempt. Everything you have put online since then may be concerned. Find out more: Is your PDF catalogue still enough?.

What the RGAA actually changes in your content

For a marketing or communications team, the RGAA mainly translates into design habits:

headings organised in a hierarchy, designed as a table of contents rather than just a visual effect;
alternative text for images that carry information;
sufficient contrast between text and background;
tables built to be read cell by cell;
explicit links rather than “click here”;
documents structured from the layout stage, not just at export.

A new version, RGAA 5, has been announced for the end of 2026. It is due to include the latest international recommendations (WCAG 2.2) and strengthen the criteria for office documents and mobile apps. The basics remain the same: what you put in place today will not be wasted.

Anticipate rather than fix

Making a document accessible after the event means reworking its structure page by page. Building it in from the design stage costs much less, and the result is better.

A few good practices to adopt today:

List your online materials: website, catalogues, brochures, product sheets, downloadable documents.
Identify the most viewed and start with them.
Brief your designers and suppliers: accessibility must be in the specification of every new document.
Use heading styles in your layout tools, rather than enlarging text by hand.
Plan an accessible version of every new document published online.

On this last point, several misconceptions die hard. Find out more: Digital accessibility: common misconceptions.

Review your materials

The easiest way to find out where you stand is to review your materials. At Connectedbook, we go through your catalogues and PDFs with you, then make them accessible or create an accessible web version.

You come away with a clear view of which materials need work and what to prioritise.

Review my materials

Digital accessibility: 4 misconceptions about your digital materials

When people talk about digital accessibility, the conversation almost always starts in the same place: the website. Yet your customers, members or partners do not only visit your website. They open your catalogues, your PDF brochures, your product guides, your annual reports. All these materials count.

Since the European Accessibility Act came into force in June 2025, the subject comes up in almost all our meetings. And with it, the same objections. Let me go through the four I hear most often, and tell you honestly where things stand.

Making our digital materials 100% accessible is impossible

This is the most common objection, and it comes from a good instinct. A 200-page catalogue with technical tables, diagrams and dozens of product images will not become perfect overnight.

But accessibility is not all or nothing. The French framework, the RGAA, actually provides for several levels: a document can be fully, partially or not compliant. What matters is the approach: knowing where you stand, fixing what really blocks people, then improving one document after another.

In practice, making a document accessible means, for example:

structuring headings so that a screen reader can move from one section to another;
defining a logical reading order;
describing useful images with alternative text;
checking the contrast between text and background;
making tables readable cell by cell.

None of this is impossible. It is methodical work, and it is what we do every day on our clients’ catalogues, PDFs and web versions.

Digital accessibility is ugly

For your PDFs, I can reassure you straight away. When we make a PDF accessible, the document you see on screen stays identical: same layout, same colours, same images. We add an invisible layer containing the structure, the reading order and the image descriptions. Your readers see the same catalogue, and people who use a screen reader can finally browse it.

For the accessible web version, I prefer to be transparent: design customisation is more constrained. To meet the regulations, certain rules must be followed on contrast, text size, page structure and keyboard navigation. We keep your identity (logo, colours, typefaces where they are suitable), but not everything is possible. In return, you get a clear version that is readable on every screen, and often more comfortable for everyone to read.

Accessibility is expensive

It all depends on when you deal with it.

If accessibility is taken into account from the design stage, its cost is absorbed into the project. The right choices are made from the start and there is almost nothing to rework afterwards.

If an existing PDF has to be made accessible, the price depends mainly on two things: the number of pages and the complexity of the document. A 12-page booklet that is mostly text is nothing like a technical catalogue full of tables and images.

For the accessible web version, there is usually an initial set-up cost. After that, most corrections and updates can be made by your own teams, independently and at no extra cost.

A large insurance company once told me that making all its materials accessible would cost too much. The question is legitimate, and the answer is not necessarily to deal with everything at once. You can start with the most viewed documents, or the most important ones for your customers, then move forward step by step. Above all, build accessibility into every new document, so you never have to go back over it.

The accessibility of our online materials does not concern us

Many companies think they are covered because their website has been audited or rebuilt to the standards. Yet the website is only part of the picture. If you publish non-accessible catalogues, product sheets or PDF brochures on it, these documents are part of your online content, and they lower your overall accessibility level.

On the regulatory side, there are indeed exemptions. The European Accessibility Act does not apply, in particular:

to microenterprises providing services, meaning fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover (or balance sheet total) of €2 million or less;
to office documents, such as PDFs, published before 28 June 2025;
to content published by third parties that you do not control;
where compliance would impose a disproportionate burden, provided this can be justified.

In short, if you are not a microenterprise, every new catalogue or brochure put online since June 2025 may be concerned. Depending on your sector and size, other obligations may apply, such as the RGAA. Find out more: RGAA: what is really changing for businesses.

And beyond the law, there are your readers: a person who is visually impaired, dyslexic or who only navigates with a keyboard should be able to read your catalogue like any other customer.

Where to start?

The simplest thing is to take stock. Which materials do you publish online? Which are the most viewed? Which cause problems today?

That is what we offer: reviewing your materials together. To begin with, I suggest a first phone call, to get to know each other and understand your needs. No commitment, just a way to see where you stand and what to prioritise.

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Does the paper catalogue still have a place?

“Should we stop printing our catalogue?” The question comes up regularly among companies that present their products on paper. And the answer sometimes comes as a surprise: no, not necessarily.

The real question is rather: how many copies to print, who to send them to, and what to add to the paper version to reach people who are more comfortable with digital. So the paper catalogue still has its place. However, it is no longer the only one.

What paper does better than anything else

Indeed, the printed catalogue still has real strengths, and it would be a shame to do without it where it works.

At a trade show, it is leafed through on the stand and leaves in the visitor’s bag.
In a sales meeting, it anchors the conversation. You turn the pages together and point to a product.
For customers who are less comfortable with digital, it remains the simplest format: no link, no screen, no password.
On a desk, it is kept, annotated and dog-eared. In fact, some customers keep coming back to it for months.
For your image, good paper and high-quality printing say something about your brand, especially at the premium end.

In all these situations, paper is therefore often still the best choice.

Where it shows its limits

However, paper also has its constraints, and they weigh more and more.

Prices and product references date quickly. A price increase, a discontinued product, a new reference: sometimes it only takes a few weeks for part of the printed catalogue to be out of date.

It is expensive to produce and send. Printing, finishing, postage: every copy has a cost. In addition, the price of paper has risen sharply in recent years.

You do not know what is read. Once the catalogue has been sent, there is no way of knowing whether your customer opened it, which pages interested them, or whether they left it in its wrapping.

Its environmental impact is not neutral. Paper, inks, transport: the larger the print runs, the larger the footprint. Printing just what you need is therefore also a way of communicating more sustainably.

How many, for whom, and with what?

So rather than choosing between paper and digital, the right approach is to share out the roles.

Paper for the audiences and moments where it makes a difference: trade shows, meetings, loyal customers, resellers.
The interactive catalogue for everyone who prefers to read online, on a computer or on mobile, with reading analytics, search across the whole catalogue and direct links to your products.

The result: you print less, but better. Moreover, you target your print runs and leave no one out.

Print and publish at the same time

In practice, most of our clients keep things very simple. When they send the final proof to their printer, they send us the PDF and the resources needed to create the interactive catalogue.

Both versions are therefore ready at the same time. The paper catalogue goes to the printer, we put the interactive version online, and the launch campaign can rely on both formats from day one. No time lag, and no online version arriving three weeks after the paper one.

Find out more: Is your PDF catalogue still enough?

An example: a gradual transition

We have worked with companies in a range of different sectors.

Today, they print their catalogues on a case-by-case basis, for certain specific audiences. On the other hand, they publish some editions online only, from a PDF turned into an interactive catalogue.

The transition happened gradually. Among their reasons was the rising price of paper, which led them to rethink their strategy: keep print where it is genuinely useful, and move to digital for the rest.

So, do we keep paper?

Yes, where it makes sense. In short, the paper catalogue has not had its final say, but you no longer need to send it to everyone. By pairing it with an interactive catalogue, you reach each audience with the format that suits it, and you keep control of your printing costs.

Ultimately, the easiest way to see this for yourself is to view your own catalogue as an interactive version. Send us your PDF and we will prepare a demo for you.

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Is your PDF catalogue still enough in 2027?

The PDF has one real advantage: everyone knows how to open it. For years, it was the simplest way to share a catalogue online. You take the file sent to the printer, upload it to your website, and job done.

Once online, though, that PDF lives a life of its own. You do not know who opens it, what people look at, or whether it is read to the end. It sits on a server until the next one replaces it. So, in 2027, is the PDF still enough? For some uses, yes. For others, it makes you miss out on a great deal.

What the PDF does badly today

On mobile, reading becomes a chore

An A4 page on a phone screen means zooming in, swiping, zooming out. And often, before you can even start reading, you have to download a file of several dozen megabytes. Many readers give up before they reach the third page.

You do not know what is read

No statistics, no clicks measured. There is no way of knowing which pages interest your customers, or which are never opened.

Versions multiply

The PDF emailed in January is still circulating in September. Between the website version, the sales rep’s version and the one a customer forwarded to a colleague, no one knows which is up to date any more.

Google and some of your readers struggle to read it

Google indexes PDFs, but poorly: a single file for dozens of products, with no structure and no links to your product pages. And in the vast majority of cases, the PDF is not accessible to people who use a screen reader. Find out more: common misconceptions about digital accessibility.

What an interactive catalogue changes

An interactive catalogue takes your PDF, with the same layout, and brings it to life online:

smooth reading on computers and mobiles, with nothing to download;
reading analytics: page views, time spent, clicks on products;
links to your product pages, your shop or a contact form, plus embedded videos;
a search engine across the whole catalogue;
a single link that is always up to date: you correct the catalogue, and the link already shared stays the same;
direct integration into your website, via an iframe;
an accessible version if you need one.

A real tool for your sales team

The catalogue can also support your teams in meetings: a favourites list, offline reading, note-taking, bookmarks. Sales reps prepare their selection before the visit and find it on their tablet, even without a connection.

For confidential documents

Negotiated prices, documentation reserved for distributors, internal catalogues: we can set up login-based access. Your contacts read the document online, without being able to download the PDF.

Paper and digital: two complementary uses

In most cases, we start from the PDF you send to the printer. The interactive catalogue is aimed at the same audience, particularly people who are more comfortable with digital. You are not replacing your paper catalogue, you are adding a second way in. If you are wondering about this, find out more: the place of the paper catalogue today.

The catalogue can also become an internal tool. For a client in the educational equipment sector, we took its product catalogue and developed a version for its marketing department: when you hover over a product, the team can see, for example, the sales made on it during the year. The same adapted format is used to sell and to steer the business.

An example: a works council catalogue

A works council shared its partners’ offers in a PDF catalogue. By moving to an interactive catalogue, the document gained in value. Employees order more easily, and the works council has a tool that helps and encourages it to win over new partners.

So, do we keep the PDF?

Yes, for printing, archiving or a one-off send. But if it is your only online format, you are sharing a document without knowing what becomes of it.

The easiest way to get an idea is to see your own catalogue as an interactive version. Send us one of your PDFs and we will prepare a demo for you.

Request my demo