WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: PDF Accessibility

for

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Jan 20, 2010 6:36AM

Geof,

I do not believe that it is hopeless, but authors are still learning about accessibility and not just for PDF. You don't need to look far to find issues with access to HTML content either, although the proliferation of tools that author acceptably accessible HTML occurred earlier than the proliferation of tools that author acceptably accessible PDF so there is an abundance of PDF documents out there that need work to bring them up to an appropriate level.

I do believe that if the author of the SSA document at http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/documents/ssa/SSA_Guide_to_Accessible_PDF_Documents_and_Forms.pdf#4 simply republished the original word document with the latest version of Acrobat that the document issues that we're seeing would be addressed. Or, the author could modify the rolemap and mark the document as tagged PDF (it has tags but the document flag that says that it is tagged was un-set) and it would be much better. I'll let a contact at the SSA know...

Regarding your comment about making the conversion process better, I believe that we have and will continue to do so. The document in question was published three and a half years ago with older tools and there are improvements since then that would help. There's more to do, and I can assure you that Karen McCall's claim that she tells us about issues is accurate and we value her feedback and encourage others to let us know when you have issues or ideas.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick

Senior Product Manager, Accessibility

Adobe Systems

<EMAIL REMOVED>


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 7:31 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF Accessibility

I have to ask who are people making pdf's accessible for? I've been
trying to like them but as far as I am concerned it is hopeless.

I have the latest technology and still I cannot read them any better
than I could with my old technology, I only open them in hopes that
one day I will be able to read them effortlessly but that is just not
happening so I fall back to my usual plan and that is to ask them to
be converted to a more accessible format, so I ask why bother in the
first place, I'm sure I'm not the only one doing this.

We have legislation that gives me this option so perhaps Adobe would
do better to make the conversion process better, you cant force
people to drive cars they dont like so why do it with documentation.

cheers

Geof






At 09:16 PM 1/19/2010, you wrote:
>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_Documents_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>
> >
> >
> >
>