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Re: PDF Accessibility

for

From: Monir ElRayes
Date: Jan 20, 2010 3:15PM

Geoff,

PDF is a widely used document format and there are good reasons for this.
Obviously making PDF documents accessible "manually" is typically much more
difficult than HTML. Hence the frustration of many with PDF. However, with
the right tools, PDF documents can be made accessible as easily as HTML.
Also keep in mind that the PDF format specification supports all the key
structures required for accessibility. As a result, a properly designed
accessible PDF document is just as accessible as an HTML document and is
typically more accessible than a Word document.

Best Regards,

Monir ElRayes
President
NetCentric Technologies

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
Sent: January-20-10 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
_Doc
uments_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>
> >
> >
> >
>