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Re: PDF Accessibility

for

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

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Dona Patrick
Sent: January-19-10 9:17 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF Accessibility

Andrew,

When I downloaded the file (save file as) onto my computer and opened it
with Acrobat 9 professional it looked like it had tags as well -- not very
useful tags, but tags nonetheless. I went through about 10 pages and tagged
it -- it's pretty straightforward, if I'm doing it correctly.

Here is the link I used:
http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/documents/ssa/SSA_Guide_to_Accessible_PDF_Docu
ments_and_Forms.pdf#4

I didn't realize that Acrobat and reader added tags automatically but
weren't permanent etc. There is a lot out there about Acrobat that is not
well known. Can you talk more about that, Andrew?

I'm co-presenting a talk about PDFs & accessibility on Saturday and am going
to mention this discussion.

Dona
cedarwaxwing on twitter
http://accessdp.wordpress.org

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 6:41 PM, Andrew Kirkpatrick
< <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:

> No, unless I'm looking at a different document, it isn't tagged. Acrobat
> and Reader will add tags automatically, but they are not permanent and
will
> lack image equivalents and likely have inconsistent semantics.
>
> Steve, what URL are you using that you're seeing a tagged file?
>
> Thanks,
> AWK
>
> Andrew Kirkpatrick
>
> Senior Product Manager, Accessibility
>
> Adobe Systems
>
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
>
>