WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Accessible "save as pdf" plug ins for Word on OSX

for

From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Jan 6, 2011 4:36PM

Birkir, the problem might be that the source document is not accessible. My limited experience with the Save As PDF feature in Word 2007 is that it does a pretty good job of capturing all the structure of the document and the alt text for illustrations. But, as with Acrobat Professional, if the structure isn't in the source document, it won't magically appear in the PDF.

Heather, CutePDF captures text and links (including e-mail addresses), but does not capture structural tags when it creates a PDF.

So only documents that have no structure and need no structure can be converted to "accessible" PDF with Cute PDF.

Another way to put it is that if your document has any of these elements:
--Headings (even 1 in my book; some would argue that it takes more)
--Lists (bulleted or numbered)
--Meaningful images
--Data tables
--Perhaps more that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head

then the PDF created by CutePDF will not be accessible.

You can, using Common Look or a similar tagging tool, convert PDFs created by CutePDF into accessible documents. But then you're repeating all the work you did in creating the source document.

Cliff

Cliff Tyllick
Usability assessment coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512-239-4516
<EMAIL REMOVED>


>>> On 1/6/2011 at 5:16 PM, in message < <EMAIL REMOVED> >, Heather Parker < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
We have Macs at home and I will check it out.

We also use the free CutePdf a lot from all the PC computers here at work. It works a lot like the Mac pdf creator. I tried to find settings for the CutePdf, but it works like a printer and the settings are very much like a printer too. Not sure if it is configurable.

I'm really glad that pdfs are being discussed at we are started to load our dissertation proposals to a repository. The first few that we loaded didn't pass everything for accessibility using my Adobe Acrobat Professional. Not knowing exactly how to fix them and being pressed for time, we loaded them "as is" for now. A librarian is in charge of the project and I am just supporting her technically. She is supposed to sort out how to get accessible pdfs to upload. The trainer provided by the repository vendor was really interested in how our pdfs failed, but he didn't know how to fix them either. The company provides a service that will create good pdfs (not sure how accessible) for you, but you can load your own pdfs instead of paying for the service. I think it would be helpful if there was online training someplace that helped people like me with creating good accessible pdfs. A webinar or workshop would be wonderful.

We also used to have help guides in html, pdf and word format. Due to how laborious it was for me to update the help guides pages (someone else authors the guides), we now only use pdfs. I am trying to get the help pages moved over to a site with a content management system that other staff who don't know html can use. The guide pages would be webpages (in html), but depending on the content management system, I can see how this might not be better at all if the format isn't reader friendly.

Heather Parker
Electronic Resource Coordinator
Alliant International University Library
San Diego, CA