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

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From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Jan 6, 2011 4:48PM

Heather, I missed at first that your inaccessible PDFs were created with Acrobat Professional. Oops!

If you're still using Word 2003, then it and Acrobat Professional weren't speaking the same language when it came to language specification. After creating the PDF from Word 2003, you have to set the language specification (under File, Properties, Advanced) in the PDF and, of course, save before running the accessibility check.

This problem went away with Word 2007, but the problem is with the *file* format and can't be changed simply by opening a Word 2003 file in a later version of Word. Before the language specification will be picked up in the creation of the PDF, you have to convert the file to a Word 2007 (or 2010) file (using the "Convert" command under the Office button in 2007; I guess it's under "File" in Word 2010).

And, of course, you should save the file and then convert it to a PDF.

If the PDF lacks a language specification, Acrobat Pro won't tell anything about the accessibility of the file except that it lacks a language spec. So merely changing the language spec in the "inaccessible" PDF will make it fully accessible if that was, in fact, its only problem.

But if other problems exist, they won't appear in the report until after the language spec is fixed.

Cliff

>>> 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