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From: Robert Jaquiss
Date: Sat, Jul 12 2014 3:58PM
Subject: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into an accessible page?
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Hello:



I have a PowerPoint that I want to convert to an accessible web page.
The file can be saved as htm wich generates a directory of files and the htm
file that starts the page. Unfortunately, the controls to access the slides
end up only being accessible with a mouse. Is there a way to make PowerPoint
create an accessible page or is there another tool to accomplish this? My
purpose is to extract all the images and text for conversion to an
accessible format. Thank you.



Regards,



Robert

From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Sat, Jul 12 2014 4:27PM
Subject: Re: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into an accessible page?
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The only product I knew of that did PPT to HTML was on
http://www.virtual508.com/products.html, but it looks like it never updated
past Office 2007. I never used it though. I vaguely recall a product in the
Lectora line up that did PPT to something, I think it is a Lectora file.
Lectora can export to accessible HTML, but I know there's a learning curve
in Lectora.

--
Ryan E. Benson


On Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 5:58 PM, Robert Jaquiss < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Hello:
>
>
>
> I have a PowerPoint that I want to convert to an accessible web page.
> The file can be saved as htm wich generates a directory of files and the
> htm
> file that starts the page. Unfortunately, the controls to access the slides
> end up only being accessible with a mouse. Is there a way to make
> PowerPoint
> create an accessible page or is there another tool to accomplish this? My
> purpose is to extract all the images and text for conversion to an
> accessible format. Thank you.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Robert
>
>
>
> > > >

From: Jennifer Sutton
Date: Sun, Jul 13 2014 3:12PM
Subject: Re: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into an accessible page?
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Greetings:

Maybe some of these articles will help.

First, what do you know? WebAIM has an article on Powerpoint accessibility:

http://webaim.org/techniques/powerpoint/

There are a couple of sections about powerPoint in this document from
TX, twoard the end:
http://gov.texas.gov/disabilities/accessibledocs

http://www.section508.va.gov/support/tutorials/powerpoint/index.asp

And these cheat sheets from NCDAE:
http://ncdae.org/resources/cheatsheets/

While I realize that these may not *focus* on creating accessible
HTML, they should improve what you create and save. I've never found
what's saved from Office to be clean HTML; I've always felt I needed
to tweak it.


Jennifer

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Sun, Jul 13 2014 4:34PM
Subject: Re: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into an accessible page?
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Hi,
On 12 Jul 2014, at 23:58, "Robert Jaquiss" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> I have a PowerPoint that I want to convert to an accessible web page.

I was wondering about this question for a while, and was somehow surprised that not a single useful idea came to mind… Then it dawned on me that **one** web page is conceptually the wrong approach for representing a PowerPoint presentation. It is its very nature that it consists of a deck of slides. Individual slides that is. So the closest one could get to replicate a slide deck on the web would be to use a stack or sequence of slide-loike entities. Using plain HTML this would probably mean to use one web page per slide, and link them in a suitable fashion, using "next slide" links and maybe also "previous slide" links. Using CSS, JavaScript, and/or maybe SVG would allow for more dynamic options inside what could technically still be considered a single web page, though accessibility could eveneasily suffer in such an approach.

But leaving all this reasoning behind I am still puzzled why I have never heard of an accessible representation for a slide presentation in the form of HTML content…? Does it exist? Or are HTML / web pages just not a good fit for [accessible] slide presentations? How is everybody else sharing their slide presentations in an accessible manner?

Olaf

From: Tania
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2014 12:09AM
Subject: Re: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into an accessible page?
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recently i created a webpage to present photos individually on screen .
Used table with one column and each td height the same as monitor
screen. put a <img in each td with alt text. the first td has words
only. but in other 'td' can use same technique to present.
the aim was to simulate slide presentation for blind friend to use.
On 7/14/2014 6:34 AM, Olaf Drümmer wrote:
> Hi,
> On 12 Jul 2014, at 23:58, "Robert Jaquiss" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> I have a PowerPoint that I want to convert to an accessible web page.
> I was wondering about this question for a while, and was somehow surprised that not a single useful idea came to mind… Then it dawned on me that **one** web page is conceptually the wrong approach for representing a PowerPoint presentation. It is its very nature that it consists of a deck of slides. Individual slides that is. So the closest one could get to replicate a slide deck on the web would be to use a stack or sequence of slide-loike entities. Using plain HTML this would probably mean to use one web page per slide, and link them in a suitable fashion, using "next slide" links and maybe also "previous slide" links. Using CSS, JavaScript, and/or maybe SVG would allow for more dynamic options inside what could technically still be considered a single web page, though accessibility could eveneasily suffer in such an approach.
>
> But leaving all this reasoning behind I am still puzzled why I have never heard of an accessible representation for a slide presentation in the form of HTML content…? Does it exist? Or are HTML / web pages just not a good fit for [accessible] slide presentations? How is everybody else sharing their slide presentations in an accessible manner?
>
> Olaf
>
> > > >

--
Regards,
Tania

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2014 3:32AM
Subject: Re: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into an accessible page?
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So you are using a table as a layout table? I thought this is frowned upon in WCAG minded accessibility circles.

Anyway, my actual questions is: how did this help your blind friend?

Olaf

On 14 Jul 2014, at 08:09, Tania < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> recently i created a webpage to present photos individually on screen . Used table with one column and each td height the same as monitor screen. put a <img in each td with alt text. the first td has words only. but in other 'td' can use same technique to present.
> the aim was to simulate slide presentation for blind friend to use.
> On 7/14/2014 6:34 AM, Olaf Drümmer wrote:
>

From: John E Brandt
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2014 8:39AM
Subject: Re: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into anaccessible page?
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I think Olaf has covered at least part of my question to the original author
of this question. My question is:

Why bother sharing a PowerPoint presentation in any format other than as the
original PPT file?

IMHO...<rant>

The only purpose in sharing a PowerPoint - in any format - would be to give
it to someone who was preparing to present on the same topic and by doing
so, would save them the time in making their own slides.

If the purpose is to share information about or from one's oral
presentation, a set of PowerPoint slides should be the least helpful - IF
the PowerPoint is created in a "proper" way.

In reality, many/most people simply create a set of notes - or worse, an
entire speech - and convert that into a PowerPoint with perhaps some bullets
and images. Then they drive the participants crazy by simply reading the
slides to the audience. Yuck.

A well-constructed set of presentation slides should only seek to illustrate
and amplify the presenters words - not replace them; providing a visual
representation that attenuates the spoken word. Think Steve Jobs - single
words, pithy phrases, lots of images.

So if you need it to communicate the content of an oral presentation - just
create a set of speakers notes, along with your charts and graphs, images
and graphics, and make it into a nice accessible digital document and share
that with the participants. If done well, you can even share this with the
participants before the event so they can read ahead saving everyone some
time. You can also share resources and links in this format, so you audience
will listen to you and not be busily trying to write down notes of what you
are sharing.

</rant>

Granted, people use PowerPoint for all kinds of reasons, not just oral
presentations. But depending on those reasons, there may be many ways to
present this content as a fully accessible digital document.

~j

John E. Brandt
jebswebs: accessible and universal web design,
development and consultation
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
207-622-7937
Augusta, Maine, USA

@jebswebs

From: Sailesh Panchang
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2014 10:44AM
Subject: Re: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into an accessible page?
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Here are a couple of tools that work well for creating HTML slides.
http://www.w3.org/Talks/slidemaker/YYMMsub/
http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/
These are easy to learn and implement but do not convert PPT to HTML
is that's the intent.
I have used Slidemaker in the past.

Thanks,
Sailesh


On 7/14/14, John E Brandt < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I think Olaf has covered at least part of my question to the original
> author
> of this question. My question is:
>
> Why bother sharing a PowerPoint presentation in any format other than as
> the
> original PPT file?
>
> IMHO...<rant>
>
> The only purpose in sharing a PowerPoint - in any format - would be to give
> it to someone who was preparing to present on the same topic and by doing
> so, would save them the time in making their own slides.
>
> If the purpose is to share information about or from one's oral
> presentation, a set of PowerPoint slides should be the least helpful - IF
> the PowerPoint is created in a "proper" way.
>
> In reality, many/most people simply create a set of notes - or worse, an
> entire speech - and convert that into a PowerPoint with perhaps some
> bullets
> and images. Then they drive the participants crazy by simply reading the
> slides to the audience. Yuck.
>
> A well-constructed set of presentation slides should only seek to
> illustrate
> and amplify the presenters words - not replace them; providing a visual
> representation that attenuates the spoken word. Think Steve Jobs - single
> words, pithy phrases, lots of images.
>
> So if you need it to communicate the content of an oral presentation - just
> create a set of speakers notes, along with your charts and graphs, images
> and graphics, and make it into a nice accessible digital document and share
> that with the participants. If done well, you can even share this with the
> participants before the event so they can read ahead saving everyone some
> time. You can also share resources and links in this format, so you
> audience
> will listen to you and not be busily trying to write down notes of what you
> are sharing.
>
> </rant>
>
> Granted, people use PowerPoint for all kinds of reasons, not just oral
> presentations. But depending on those reasons, there may be many ways to
> present this content as a fully accessible digital document.
>
> ~j
>
> John E. Brandt
> jebswebs: accessible and universal web design,
> development and consultation
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> 207-622-7937
> Augusta, Maine, USA
>
> @jebswebs
>
>

From: Jonathan Metz
Date: Mon, Jul 14 2014 11:50AM
Subject: Re: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into an accessible page?
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On 7/14/14, 10:39 AM, "John E Brandt" wrote:

>Why bother sharing a PowerPoint presentation in any format other than as
>the original PPT file?

Many clients request presentations in an accessible format in addition to
receiving a PowerPoint (PPT) file. The idea, in my opinion, is that if you
are going to post something that is inaccessible, you must provide
something that is an equivalent accessible alternative.

A lot of clients prefer an accessible format even when they aren't posting
one online. So the obvious question is, why would we create an alternate
version knowing that internal clients would need PowerPoint in order to
open a dot-PPT file in the first place.

I agree with an argument that the a presentation would really only help
people make edits to them in PowerPoint. The problem is that not many
people REALLY understand how to use the software. As Whitney astutely
pointed out back in May,
(http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_message?id%747), if everyone used
software — and formatted documents — correctly and followed some basic
best practices for accessibility, "it wouldn't take more than an
inter-office memo to teach the additions for accessibility."

That said, the nature of using PowerPoint is still really frustrating
even for people who do everything correctly. For example, let's take Smart
Art: JAWS can access Smart Art, but it's insanely annoying to do so
(https://www.mail-archive.com/ = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = /msg54399.html)
. I can imagine that someone who requires assistive technology for
navigating a PPT slide is like navigating objects in a room under water.

Providing an accessible format so it can provide a means to understand
what the presentation would look like so the user can make the changes
they need to. The problem would be to convey the information in an
*equivalently* semantically structured format that would correlate
logically to the PowerPoint file.

IMHO…

I think this is one area that a properly tagged and formatted PDF excels
over HTML, because the presentation of the original document is identical
and provides a way to identify a logical structure. There are other
benefits too:

1. PDFs would be able to identify what you would need to edit offline.
2. incompatibility issues, Software trouble, etc, occur, so PDFs can also
be displayed like a presentation too just in case.
3. When you export the PDF from PPT, usually you're just correcting tags.
When you export to HTML from PPT 2010 you're — Wait... You can't export to
HTML from PPT 2010.
4. You can export from PPT to PDF directly from Office 2010.

/rant


>A well-constructed set of presentation slides should only seek to
>illustrate
>and amplify the presenters words - not replace them; providing a visual
>representation that attenuates the spoken word. Think Steve Jobs - single
>words, pithy phrases, lots of images.

This is kind of off topic, but I disagree. I believe in certain
circumstances like marketing a product or showing off a tool, this makes
the most sense, but if you are doing something like explaining complex
theses or teaching innovations of surgical incisions within abdomenal
aorta regions, this sort of approach doesn't work real well.

Instead, I believe it's important to "design presentations according to
your audience."

Cheers,
Jon

From: Robert Jaquiss
Date: Thu, Jul 17 2014 9:21AM
Subject: Re: Question: How to convert a PowerPoint into anaccessible page?
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Hello:

Thank you all for the comments. Interesting reading about the concepts and uses of PowerPoint presentations. I was attempting to use a web conversion in order to disassemble the PowerPoint presentation. I don't want to build a public web page. The plan is to extract the images so certain images can be converted to hardcopy tactile forms. My problem is that Microsoft creates an inaccessible web page.

Regards,

Robert