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Re: PDF Accessibility

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From: Karlen Communications
Date: Jan 20, 2010 5:15AM

If you are using adaptive technology such as a screen reader, Acrobat or
Reader will identify that a document is not tagged when you open it. Acrobat
or Reader will try to create what are like "virtual Tags" in that it is a
tool to try and provide structure where there is none. There are two
problems I find with this: first each time the "virtual Tags" are created
they are not consistent and you may get different results each time you open
the document and second, some people think that because we have this tool
that I think was intended for legacy documents, that they don't have to make
PDF accessible because "Acrobat or Reader will."

BTW if you are using adaptive technology and open a scanned image of a
document you will be notified and asked if you want to perform OCR. Once
that is done, you will get the message asking if you want Acrobat or reader
to infer the reading order from the untagged document. This dialog can be
turned off so if you don't notice it and are using adaptive technology it
might be turned off. You can turn it on again in the Acrobat or reader
Preferences.

Cheers, Karen