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Re: WebAIM-Forum Digest, Vol 60, Issue 21

for

From: John E. Brandt
Date: Mar 26, 2010 1:33PM


Here are some resources. The first reference is from the Adobe accessibility
training site. I have written several articles on accessible documents which
may be found on the Maine CITE website (the second reference). There are a
number of folks in this list that also have resources and I am sure you will
hear from them as well. The last reference is from the AcrobatUsers group.
They have some videos on there that will be helpful

http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/training.html
http://mainecite.org/awd/accdocs.html
http://www.acrobatusers.com/topics/accessibility

And while you're at it, don't stop with just trying to make your PDFs
accessible. All of your documents should be accessible including Word,
PowerPoint and webpages.

~j

John E. Brandt
jebswebs.com
Augusta, ME USA
<EMAIL REMOVED>
www.jebswebs.com


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Collins Flannery
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 2:14 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] WebAIM-Forum Digest, Vol 60, Issue 21

Can someone attach the directions for making a PDF accessible? I have all
the Adobe tools, but nothing online was succinct in terms of giving step by
step instructions.

Thank you ~
Collins Flannery
Arrowpoint Corp


On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 11:00 AM,
< <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:

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> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of WebAIM-Forum digest..."
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
> (Hoffman, Allen)
> 2. Re: alt tags in PDF's (Andrew Kirkpatrick)
> 3. Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508 (Ted)
> 4. Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
> (Julie Romanowski)
> 5. Re: PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
> (Langum, Michael J)
> 6. Tables with a checkbox column (James Kennard)
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "Hoffman, Allen" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:14:52 -0400
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
> PDF content accessibility should not be dependent upon a particular
> screen reader product. If the content is tagged appropriately to meet
> accessibility requirements, and the PDF "reader" renders the information
> for inspection by the assistive technology--and then the assistive
> technology doesn't utilize the information provided, well, time to look
> at another technology.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Don Mauck [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 2:39 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
>
> I'd disagree with that, it depends on the screen reader.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Monir ElRayes [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 7:09 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
>
> In addition to what Allen said, it is interesting to note that there are
> two
> other factors that are often confused with whether a given document
> format
> (e.g. pdf) is accessible:
>
> 1) Does the document format have internal infrastructure that supports
> accessibility? PDF and HTML do for all known accessibility requirements
> related to various document elements (e.g. images, tables, lists etc).
> Interestingly MS Word - which many people view as inherently more
> accessible
> than PDF- does not have sufficient internal infrastructure to support
> some
> key elements (e.g. tables)
>
> 2) How difficult is it to make a given format accessible (i.e. to author
> it
> correctly)? Much of the confusion about the accessibility of PDF is a
> result
> of the fact 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,
> not to mention the fact that many PDFs don't even originate in Acrobat.
> Tools like CommonLook (for document remediation in Acrobat
> http://www.net-centric.com/products/cl_s508_adobe.aspx ) and PAW (for
> authoring accessible PDF from MS Word
> http://www.net-centric.com/products/PAW.aspx ) can help overcome the
> inherent difficulty in making PDF accessible.
>
>
> Monir ElRayes
> President
> NetCentric Technologies
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Hoffman,
> Allen
> Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 2:31 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
>
> Can someone point to the part of the refresh of the Section 508
> standards that would say "PDF is accessible"?
>
> In my view, content in PDF format can be accessible if authored
> correctly.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karlen Communications [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 6:53 AM
> To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
>
> Ironically there is a company called JAWS that has had PDF creation
> software
> for years.
> http://www.jawspdf.com/
>
> They didn't used to be interested in accessibility but I haven't checked
> them out recently.
>
> I don't see anything about accessibility on their site.
>
> I found them by accident in the early days of a GUI Internet when
> looking
> for screen reader information. :-)
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Christophe
> Strobbe
> Sent: March-22-10 6:31 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF will be legally accessible with the new 508
>
>
> At 05:37 20/03/2010, John Foliot wrote:
> >(...)
> >We know that there are legacy PDF's out there that will not be
> accessible,
> >and likely a few still being created today that are not as rich as
> >Acrobat/Live Design could produce. We can only blame that on history
> and
> >poor training though, right? Is this a problem with "PDF" or of poor
> >authoring practice and the early history of PDF? (...)
>
> There is still a lot of work to be done to improve authoring
> practices. I am involved in several projects funded by the European
> Commission that had to rework deliverables because the PDF files were
> not accessible or not tagged. I had to teach people how to use
> Heading styles in MS Word and how to generate tagged PDF from
> OpenOffice.org - even more than a year after the start of these
> projects. These projects, as all the work I do, focus on
> accessibility for people with disabilities. There is a cruel irony in
> this.
>
> Lesson learnt: provide tutorials about accessibile authoring
> practices at the start of such projects.
>
>
> >Interesting note about cheap alternatives that generate pseudo-PDFs
> that
> >lack access features. Are you aware of any examples that I could see?
> It
> >would be interesting to see what if anything they do produce - perhaps
> we
> >should go after those software companies instead - I wonder aloud if
> ISO
> >could modify the once proprietary but now open PDF standard to place a
> >stronger insistence on accessibility to be called "PDF" (worth asking,
> >no?). If bad software tools (versus a file format) is the culprit, we
> >should point that out with proof, and attack the real problem. Most
> large
> >organizations that I know of, the majority will not buy faulty tools if
> >they can avoid it, so the market place can be our friend if we are
> smart
> >about it.
>
> John, are you looking for overviews like the following?
> * JISC TechDIS: "Coparison of Free PDF Software" (no date)
> <http://www.techdis.ac.uk/index.php?p=3_20_2_2>;
> * "Accessibility testing 14 PDF creation tools" (12 September 2009):
>
> <http://www.pws-ltd.com/sections/articles/2009/pdf_conversion_tools.html
> >.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Christophe Strobbe
>
>
>
> --
> Christophe Strobbe
> K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
> Research Group on Document Architectures
> Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
> B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
> BELGIUM
> tel: +32 16 32 85 51
> http://www.docarch.be/
> ---
> "Better products and services through end-user empowerment"
> http://www.usem-net.eu/
> ---
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