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Re: PDFs that read one word per line

for

From: Moore,Michael (DARS)
Date: Jan 26, 2010 7:30AM


Hi Geof

Believe me we feel your pain. The vast majority of PDFs are created with no regard for accessibility. And there is a huge misconception that all PDFs are accessible. Thus there is an attitude among many users that all I need to do to post an accessible version of any document is convert it to PDF. Add to that the number of automated, database driven reporting tools that publish to a totally inaccessible PDF format and you have a situation that has led many of my friends who use screen readers to add the letter "U" to the end of the PDF acronym.

Adobe is not wholly responsible for this mess. They don't create the reporting tools, and they are not responsible for teaching folks to use their document creation and PDF conversion tools properly. They don't even make all of the tools that create PDFs from Office documents. The do promote PDF as an accessible format though, and unfortunately their success has made the Adobe name synonymous with PDF in the eyes of the general public.

We are taking a holistic approach to the problem. First we provide training to people in how to use their MS Office tools properly to create well structured documents. Next we teach them how to use those well structured documents to create accessible PDFs, and HTML documents and how to make judgments about which format is appropriate for the intended audience. We encourage document authors to make materials available in multiple formats to meet the needs of a variety of users. Once people see how easy it is to create documents that are accessible in their native format, and then easily convert them to accessible PDF and HTML then we have a community that is creating a document library that is easier to use and to maintain. That's our theory anyway, ask me again in about a year how well we are doing.

As for the automated reporting tools... we test, we report, and we try to influence the manufacturers of the tools to do a better job.

Mike Moore

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 8:07 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDFs that read one word per line

Hi All

Further to this post, why am I having such trouble with these pdf
documents even though I have the latest Adobe Reader and JAWS 10, I
keep getting documents like this that I cannot navigate, I hear open
parent document" and I hit enter and all I hear is "1 or some other
number, even though I was able to read the document from the
beginning. I'm never sure if I have read the whole document.

In a previous document I hit tab and it opened some part of the
document but this one didn't, I'm finding no consistency in pdf's
lately other than they are not very accessible.

cheers

Geof