E-mail List Archives
Thread: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
Number of posts in this thread: 21 (In chronological order)
From: Wayne Dick
Date: Fri, Mar 19 2010 12:36PM
Subject: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
No previous message | Next message →
Well the new 508 requires that visual
accommodation only be required for individuals
with legal blindness. People with print
disabilities caused by low vision who are not
blind must use those accommodations. Since
everyone can use screen enlargement, everyone must.
That makes PDF accessible.
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Fri, Mar 19 2010 1:45PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
Wayne,
That statement distorts a couple of things.
a) The new 508 isn't done. The ANPRM is open for comments, including yours.
b) Adobe Reader provides accommodations that assist low vision users even if they are not legally blind. The text enlargement and document reflow features are for anyone who wants the text to be larger. The high-contrast view options within Reader may be beneficial if a low-vision person finds it easier to read with different text and background colors. I know that you want line spacing, character spacing, word spacing, and more, and these are options for consideration in future versions. I'll also mention that Adobe Reader is not the only tool available to display PDF. As an open standard, anyone can create a tool that renders PDF - there are many options available.
Thanks,
AWK
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Senior Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
From: John Foliot
Date: Fri, Mar 19 2010 6:42PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
Wayne Dick wrote:
>
> Well the new 508 requires that visual
> accommodation only be required for individuals
> with legal blindness. People with print
> disabilities caused by low vision who are not
> blind must use those accommodations. Since
> everyone can use screen enlargement, everyone must.
>
> That makes PDF accessible.
Wayne,
Sorry, but what are you trying to say here?
Is it a criticism of the new Section 508 proposals, or are you taking on
PDF? Or are you happy with these developments? Could you elaborate on what
you feel we should be focusing on? I've not had a chance to fully digest
the change proposals, as I am still digging out from under my 6 days at
SXSW, and prepping for CSUN.
Re: PDF; done properly, they are meeting a very good level of
accessibility - the key of course is the "done properly" part. All
delivery formats have the ability to be made inaccessible by unknowing or
uncaring authors, and singling out one technology (one in particular that
has spent a lot of time working towards improved accessibility) without
something concrete to put forward to improve things further leaves me
scratching my head... Could PDF continue to improve? Likely, but so could
HTML if you want to get down to it (spacing, kerning and leading, etc.).
And in both regards, I believe that growth continues still (for example
the new @font-face in CSS3 allows us to use an expanded palette of fonts
in HTML, which could improve legibility and readability on web pages - "If
Done Properly").
JF
From: ckrugman
Date: Fri, Mar 19 2010 8:15PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
That's interesting logic for those who are totally blind and rely on screen
reading software that does not recognize poorly created PDF documents or
documents created in some of the cheap alternatives to PDF that say they do
everything that the genuine Adobe PDF does.
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wayne Dick" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 10:35 AM
Subject: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
> Well the new 508 requires that visual
> accommodation only be required for individuals
> with legal blindness. People with print
> disabilities caused by low vision who are not
> blind must use those accommodations. Since
> everyone can use screen enlargement, everyone must.
>
> That makes PDF accessible.
>
>
>
From: John Foliot
Date: Fri, Mar 19 2010 11:36PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
OK, I'm truly trying to understand. Is this a good thing for you? It is
still unclear to me. Does the PDF file format as we know it in 2010 now
contain sufficient means to provide accessible content, to multiple
Adaptive Technology tools, that it can now be considered acceptable when
done right? That seems good to me, as some of the richness that PDF *does*
afford is of value in some circumstances.
We know that there are legacy PDF's out there that will not be accessible,
and likely a few still being created today that are not as rich as
Acrobat/Live Design could produce. We can only blame that on history and
poor training though, right? Is this a problem with "PDF" or of poor
authoring practice and the early history of PDF? Everything improves over
time, from Adaptive Technology, to file formats, to good wine.
Interesting note about cheap alternatives that generate pseudo-PDFs that
lack access features. Are you aware of any examples that I could see? It
would be interesting to see what if anything they do produce - perhaps we
should go after those software companies instead - I wonder aloud if ISO
could modify the once proprietary but now open PDF standard to place a
stronger insistence on accessibility to be called "PDF" (worth asking,
no?). If bad software tools (versus a file format) is the culprit, we
should point that out with proof, and attack the real problem. Most large
organizations that I know of, the majority will not buy faulty tools if
they can avoid it, so the market place can be our friend if we are smart
about it.
Thanks Chuck.
JF
(Notice: I do not have any vested interest in the Adobe Software company,
although I do know many people who work there, and those I know are all
genuine about improving accessibility.)
>
From: ckrugman
Date: Sat, Mar 20 2010 1:33AM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
While I have no real problems with PDF files that are created properly using
JAWS 11 I am still not sure whether this is good or bad. I will furnish an
example of a program when I can remember the name of it as I attempted to
use it a couple of years ago as one of my coworkers created documents with
it that caused problems regarding access. One of the trials of working as an
independent contractor working with other independent contractors and not
necessarily dealing with organizations that have large IT budgets.
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Foliot" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
> OK, I'm truly trying to understand. Is this a good thing for you? It is
> still unclear to me. Does the PDF file format as we know it in 2010 now
> contain sufficient means to provide accessible content, to multiple
> Adaptive Technology tools, that it can now be considered acceptable when
> done right? That seems good to me, as some of the richness that PDF *does*
> afford is of value in some circumstances.
>
> We know that there are legacy PDF's out there that will not be accessible,
> and likely a few still being created today that are not as rich as
> Acrobat/Live Design could produce. We can only blame that on history and
> poor training though, right? Is this a problem with "PDF" or of poor
> authoring practice and the early history of PDF? Everything improves over
> time, from Adaptive Technology, to file formats, to good wine.
>
> Interesting note about cheap alternatives that generate pseudo-PDFs that
> lack access features. Are you aware of any examples that I could see? It
> would be interesting to see what if anything they do produce - perhaps we
> should go after those software companies instead - I wonder aloud if ISO
> could modify the once proprietary but now open PDF standard to place a
> stronger insistence on accessibility to be called "PDF" (worth asking,
> no?). If bad software tools (versus a file format) is the culprit, we
> should point that out with proof, and attack the real problem. Most large
> organizations that I know of, the majority will not buy faulty tools if
> they can avoid it, so the market place can be our friend if we are smart
> about it.
>
> Thanks Chuck.
>
> JF
> (Notice: I do not have any vested interest in the Adobe Software company,
> although I do know many people who work there, and those I know are all
> genuine about improving accessibility.)
>
>
>>
From: Wayne Dick
Date: Sun, Mar 21 2010 12:06PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
Is this good or bad... I don't know. It is.
Properly tagged PDF is structurally accessible by
any reasonable standards. The only issue is
accessibility support.
The view of the Access Board is that accessibility
support for people with sight who are legally
blind also constitutes visual support for people
with low vision who are not legally blind. In the
new draft of the Information Communication
Technology (ICT) report visual accessibility
support consists of one form of visual access that
can be used by people with visual acuity of no
better than 20/200.
I disagree, but there more important things to do
than fight it. I'd rather see a 508 upgrade go
through than slow it for some defects. The
non-visual access that proper PDF provides now
could be extended to complete visual access. That
will open a nice market for someone. The new ICT
forces structural access onto all e-text. Thus,
full accessibility support should be possible.
I think the current task is to built up
accessibility support for the e-text formats to
the level of accessibility support for XML, HTML,
Daisy and MathML. Also, we need to develop sound
statistical data on the efficacy assistive
technology for various populations of low vision.
This large and diverse group of people with
disabilities needs more careful analysis than it
has been given historically.
I think that the outlook for low vision without
blindness will improve when people really try to
read books on smaller screens. Given the current
reading platforms people will start displaying low
vision behaviors: They won't finish books due to
reading fatigue, and they will quit using the
device. To keep a market the successful
manufacturers will look at typography and realize
that that individualized typography is the only
way to enable reading stamina in a restricted
environment.
From: Christophe Strobbe
Date: Mon, Mar 22 2010 5:30AM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
At 05:37 20/03/2010, John Foliot wrote:
>(...)
>We know that there are legacy PDF's out there that will not be accessible,
>and likely a few still being created today that are not as rich as
>Acrobat/Live Design could produce. We can only blame that on history and
>poor training though, right? Is this a problem with "PDF" or of poor
>authoring practice and the early history of PDF? (...)
There is still a lot of work to be done to improve authoring
practices. I am involved in several projects funded by the European
Commission that had to rework deliverables because the PDF files were
not accessible or not tagged. I had to teach people how to use
Heading styles in MS Word and how to generate tagged PDF from
OpenOffice.org - even more than a year after the start of these
projects. These projects, as all the work I do, focus on
accessibility for people with disabilities. There is a cruel irony in this.
Lesson learnt: provide tutorials about accessibile authoring
practices at the start of such projects.
>Interesting note about cheap alternatives that generate pseudo-PDFs that
>lack access features. Are you aware of any examples that I could see? It
>would be interesting to see what if anything they do produce - perhaps we
>should go after those software companies instead - I wonder aloud if ISO
>could modify the once proprietary but now open PDF standard to place a
>stronger insistence on accessibility to be called "PDF" (worth asking,
>no?). If bad software tools (versus a file format) is the culprit, we
>should point that out with proof, and attack the real problem. Most large
>organizations that I know of, the majority will not buy faulty tools if
>they can avoid it, so the market place can be our friend if we are smart
>about it.
John, are you looking for overviews like the following?
* JISC TechDIS: "Coparison of Free PDF Software" (no date)
<http://www.techdis.ac.uk/index.php?p=3_20_2_2>;
* "Accessibility testing 14 PDF creation tools" (12 September 2009):
<http://www.pws-ltd.com/sections/articles/2009/pdf_conversion_tools.html>;.
Best regards,
Christophe Strobbe
--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/
---
"Better products and services through end-user empowerment"
http://www.usem-net.eu/
---
Please don't invite me to LinkedIn, Facebook, Quechup or other
"social networks". You may have agreed to their "privacy policy", but
I haven't.
From: Karlen Communications
Date: Mon, Mar 22 2010 5:51AM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
Ironically there is a company called JAWS that has had PDF creation software
for years.
http://www.jawspdf.com/
They didn't used to be interested in accessibility but I haven't checked
them out recently.
I don't see anything about accessibility on their site.
I found them by accident in the early days of a GUI Internet when looking
for screen reader information. :-)
Cheers, Karen
From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: Tue, Mar 23 2010 1:30PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
Can someone point to the part of the refresh of the Section 508
standards that would say "PDF is accessible"?
In my view, content in PDF format can be accessible if authored
correctly.
From: Monir ElRayes
Date: Wed, Mar 24 2010 9:09AM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
In addition to what Allen said, it is interesting to note that there are two
other factors that are often confused with whether a given document format
(e.g. pdf) is accessible:
1) Does the document format have internal infrastructure that supports
accessibility? PDF and HTML do for all known accessibility requirements
related to various document elements (e.g. images, tables, lists etc).
Interestingly MS Word - which many people view as inherently more accessible
than PDF- does not have sufficient internal infrastructure to support some
key elements (e.g. tables)
2) How difficult is it to make a given format accessible (i.e. to author it
correctly)? Much of the confusion about the accessibility of PDF is a result
of the fact that it is very hard for an average user to make a PDF document
accessible relying solely on the tools provided by Acrobat Pro or Standard,
not to mention the fact that many PDFs don't even originate in Acrobat.
Tools like CommonLook (for document remediation in Acrobat
http://www.net-centric.com/products/cl_s508_adobe.aspx ) and PAW (for
authoring accessible PDF from MS Word
http://www.net-centric.com/products/PAW.aspx ) can help overcome the
inherent difficulty in making PDF accessible.
Monir ElRayes
President
NetCentric Technologies
From: Hull, Larry G. (GSFC-750.0)[GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER]
Date: Wed, Mar 24 2010 1:03PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
I checked this PDF creation tool out. The company now has three products. See http://www.jawspdf.com/gdoc.html.
gDoc Creator(tm): The simplest solution to create PDF or XPS documents. Convert from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PostScript, PDF and XPS.
gDoc(tm) Fusion: The easiest way to quickly create, join, and edit PDF, XPS and Word documents for sharing, printing or collaboration.
gDoc PDF Server(tm): The simple and cost-saving way to automate and manage PDF conversion across your company
I found no current references to Section 508. A 2007 white paper on the site had one passing reference.
I did not see a reply to someone's request for a reference to show where PDF will be (required to be?) legally accessible with the new 508. Can someone point me to it?
Regards,
Larry
From: Don Mauck
Date: Wed, Mar 24 2010 1:42PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
I'd disagree with that, it depends on the screen reader.
From: Monir ElRayes
Date: Wed, Mar 24 2010 6:03PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
I don't think accessibility of document formats has to do with a particular
screen reader. Note that there are many screen readers out there and they
have to work according to accessibility standards such as S508 (if they
don't then it is a problem with the screen reader rather than with the
standard). Standards are screen reader-independent (as they should) and they
deal with other disabilities in addition to vision impairment. Hence the
importance of making sure documents are accessible based on a given standard
(such as S508) rather than a given screen reader (which may or may not
provide an accurate implementation of the standard)
Best Regards,
Monir ElRayes
President
NetCentric Technologies
From: Christophe Strobbe
Date: Thu, Mar 25 2010 5:12AM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
Dear Monir AlRayes,
At 00:03 25/03/2010, Monir ElRayes wrote:
>I don't think accessibility of document formats has to do with a particular
>screen reader. Note that there are many screen readers out there and they
>have to work according to accessibility standards such as S508 (if they
>don't then it is a problem with the screen reader rather than with the
>standard). Standards are screen reader-independent (as they should) and they
>deal with other disabilities in addition to vision impairment. Hence the
>importance of making sure documents are accessible based on a given standard
>(such as S508) rather than a given screen reader (which may or may not
>provide an accurate implementation of the standard)
Standards are independent of any specific screen reader, but the
accessibility of a document format is not independent of the
capablities of screen readers (or AT in general) as a technology.
That is why WCAG 2.0 defined the concept of "accessibility-supported
technology":
* <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#accessibility-supporteddef>;,
*
<http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/conformance.html#uc-accessibility-support-head>;.
(However, if there is only one screenreader for a specific language,
then the set of accessibility-supported technologies for content in
that language will be determined by what that screenreader supports.
The English-speaking part of the world is spoilt for choice in
assistive technologies compared to some other languages.)
Best regards,
Christophe Strobbe
>Best Regards,
>
>Monir ElRayes
>President
>NetCentric Technologies
>
From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: Thu, Mar 25 2010 1:15PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
PDF content accessibility should not be dependent upon a particular
screen reader product. If the content is tagged appropriately to meet
accessibility requirements, and the PDF "reader" renders the information
for inspection by the assistive technology--and then the assistive
technology doesn't utilize the information provided, well, time to look
at another technology.
From: Ted
Date: Fri, Mar 26 2010 2:18AM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
I also strongly disagree with the statement that "it is very hard for an
average user to make a PDF document accessible relying solely on the tools
provided by Acrobat Pro or Standard". But then I would - it's my job to
train them to do so. I would say that it is essential that the average user
knows how to make PDFs accessible using Acrobat Pro. And it's not difficult.
Ted Page, PWS Ltd
From: Julie Romanowski
Date: Fri, Mar 26 2010 8:45AM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
I agree, Ted. One of my responsibilities is to train people to make PDFs
accessible. Many of the people at our company who create the PDFs are
support staff, and are not highly technical. However, most are able to
catch on fairly quickly and are creating accessible PDFs in no time.
They learn that if they take a little more time making the original
document accessible, the PDF created is typically accessible. While many
are somewhat intimidated when they first use Acrobat Pro, this changes
after their first lesson.
From: Langum, Michael J
Date: Fri, Mar 26 2010 9:27AM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
Making PDF documents is not difficult if:
1. you have training
2. you can begin at the authoring level
3. your documents are not overly long or complex
4. you have the right tools (Acrobat Pro, and hopefully CommonLook)
But the above isn't always the case.
1. many authors (and their managers) resist training because it's not their "core" responsibility.
2. many organizations are dealing with legacy documents
3. some documents are inherently difficult to make accessible.
Hence the need for "experts" such as those in this community.
I would be very interested in learning some "Best Practices" in managing PDF content. If any of you are in the Washington DC area, and have problems or solutions to share, please contact me off line.
-- Mike Langum
Asst. Webmaster, WWW.OPM.GOV
U.S. Office of Personnel Management
From: Wayne Dick
Date: Sun, Mar 28 2010 10:45PM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | Next message →
Here is what I see is the current problem.
It is possible to implement PDF that meets Level
AA of WCAG 2.0.
I don't think there is enough accessibility
support. Others disagree including some very
knowledgeable accessibility leaders and organizations.
1. Accessibility Support:
I think the issue of accessibility support needs
to be examined. This problem will improve over
time because structural compliance requires the
ability to build appropriate assistive technology.
That is what the obscure term "programmatically
determined" means.
2. Training:
This is not established as much as needed. W3C
technologies have a big head start. That is a
more serious problem. In my university I often
hear comments like. "What's wrong with my handout,
I thought PDF was accessible". I am at one
university and my faculty produce between 100,000
and 200,000 instructional handouts each year.
They need training.
3. Digital libraries in PDF:
This is the most serious problem. Accessible
electronic text is the key to education both
initial and life long. Lack of access to reading
materials is the biggest single factor impeding
education for people with blindness, low vision
and dyslexia.
Last semester a digital library that I use changed
its format from HTML to a proprietary format. In
mid semester I lost access to my students'
textbook for a week. The vendor was kind enough
to give me mobile phone access on my large screen,
and I could answer my students' questions in class
until the site re established HTML.
4. Institutional Support: Adobe has made a serious
effort to make an accessible product with PDF.
The extreme popularity of PDF for users without
disabilities forces the disability support
community to put in resources necessary to address
this fact. I think we need significant help. For
HTML, CSS, XML and web technologies we had the W3C
WAI and WebAIM. For PDF we don't have a
comparable accessibility infrastructure. I see
that as another major issue.
PDF can work as a default text medium, but without
serious intervention it will be a barrier.
From: Karlen Communications
Date: Mon, Mar 29 2010 5:24AM
Subject: Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
← Previous message | No next message
Maybe part of the solution is higher visibility for the PDF/UA for Universal
Access working group:
http://pdf.editme.com/pdfuaspec
maybe the group and its work needs more publicity, understanding of what it
is doing, and publicity?
Cheers, Karen