WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Html from a .pdf file, what is the best way?

for

From: Ron Stewart
Date: Apr 7, 2010 10:09AM


I would recommend DAISY as the idea format, and HTML as the second best.
DAISY would provide for full navigable and better search ability than HTML.

Ron Stewart

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir Gunnarsson
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 11:03 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: [WebAIM] Html from a .pdf file, what is the best way?

Hey gang

I apologize if this question is borderline topic.
There is a big government report being published in a couple of weeks in my
home country, over 2000 pages, but one which will interest a lot of people.
I was contacted this morning and asked what would be the best way to make
its contents accessible to our blind/VI users.
They have it as plain text and as a series of .pdf files.
I believe a .pdf file of this size (each of them over 150 pges) may cause
problems with Adobe reader accessibility, not unless the buffer is set to 30
pages or less (please correct me if I am wrong here).
Also, if there is a link on page 2 in that document that refers to page,
say, 120, what happens with the Adobe reader in this case,. Assume the
reader clicks on the link, will the reader load page 120 and the followign
30 pages into a buffer?
I am just not sure if .pdf is a good format, I am not sure if the .txt
format is good either, since it does not allow for any textlinks and it is
an awfully large document.
But, assuming I get to the person with the source document, how hard is it
to export it to a marked up html (headings etc)?
I would think that be ideal format for a very lrge document in many
sections, for a blind user.
If anyone has an opinion on this it would be most appreciated.
Thanks
-Birkir