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Re: Australian Government guidance on PDF Accessibility

for

From: Webb, KerryA
Date: Jan 5, 2011 4:33PM

Birkir wrote:

> Therefore it seems a lot more logical to me to fix accessibility
> issues with .pdf files, rather than solve the problem by producing
> other formats, but that has been the standard thinking in many ways
> for a long time, probably created by necessity, back when we had a lot
> less flexible and adaptive technology to work with.

More logical - no argument there. But not more achievable (in the short term).

In our jurisdiction, users typically create PDFs from Word documents by hitting a button. Why? Because they
(a) don't have the proper training, and
(b) don't have the proper software.

We'll do our best to remedy both of these, but it will take time. In the meantime, publishing a Word or RTF equivalent beside the poorly-tagged PDF will (we hope) help a little.

> The option of creating content specifically for the blind also puts
> more work and resources on dedicated personnel that could be used to
> fixing the original accessibility problem, be it on the
> server/authoring side, general education or Assistive Technology bug
> fixes and improvements.
>

I'd argue that it would usually take "more work and resources" to fix the PDF accessibility problem than to publish an equivalent document - poor though it might be.

One thing I'd like to know more about is the extent that older AT software can or can't handle properly-tagged PDF.

I do appreciate the effort that Duff and his colleagues have taken to address the issues raised in the report.

Kerry

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