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Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508

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From: Langum, Michael J
Date: Mar 26, 2010 9:27AM

Making PDF documents is not difficult if:
1. you have training
2. you can begin at the authoring level
3. your documents are not overly long or complex
4. you have the right tools (Acrobat Pro, and hopefully CommonLook)

But the above isn't always the case.
1. many authors (and their managers) resist training because it's not their "core" responsibility.
2. many organizations are dealing with legacy documents
3. some documents are inherently difficult to make accessible.

Hence the need for "experts" such as those in this community.

I would be very interested in learning some "Best Practices" in managing PDF content. If any of you are in the Washington DC area, and have problems or solutions to share, please contact me off line.

-- Mike Langum
Asst. Webmaster, WWW.OPM.GOV
U.S. Office of Personnel Management



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Julie Romanowski
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 9:44 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508


I agree, Ted. One of my responsibilities is to train people to make PDFs accessible. Many of the people at our company who create the PDFs are support staff, and are not highly technical. However, most are able to catch on fairly quickly and are creating accessible PDFs in no time. They learn that if they take a little more time making the original document accessible, the PDF created is typically accessible. While many are somewhat intimidated when they first use Acrobat Pro, this changes after their first lesson.

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Ted
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 2:19 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508

I also strongly disagree with the statement that "it is very hard for an average user to make a PDF document accessible relying solely on the tools provided by Acrobat Pro or Standard". But then I would - it's my job to train them to do so. I would say that it is essential that the average user knows how to make PDFs accessible using Acrobat Pro. And it's not difficult.

Ted Page, PWS Ltd