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Re: Australian Government guidance on PDF Accessibility

for

From: Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson
Date: Jan 7, 2011 11:27AM

Cliff

I would appreciate getting a copy of this as well, if that is
something that is not a problem for you.
I am, increasingly, in the business of advising on accessible pdf, and
this could be a very helpful things to have.
-Birkir


On 1/7/11, Cliff Tyllick < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Kerry, if the documents you're producing with Acrobat Pro or the Save As PDF
> feature are inaccessible, the Word or RTF files will not be substantially
> better. If the structure is in the Word document, it will carry through to a
> PDF created by those methods. If your authors aren't using styles properly
> in Word, then a screen reader won't be able to identify headings in that
> environment, either.
>
> I hope I don't offend by saying this again, but we've found that along with
> proper training it's necessary to put an interface that supports the
> creation of accessible documents in front of the person using the word
> processor. For Word 2003, I created an Accessibility toolbar. When my
> workplace moved to Word 2007, I worked with our IT staff to create an
> Accessibility tab (it also works in Office 2010).
>
> These interfaces get rid of the buttons that change appearance without
> semantic tagging and consolidate features that are useful when you're
> creating an accessible document.
>
> If you want, I can send you a zip file containing some instructional
> materials on using these interfaces as well as templates that, if placed in
> the Word startup folder, will make the respective feature available whenever
> you open Word.
>
> After all, we're all in this together...
>
> Cliff
>
> Cliff Tyllick
> Usability assessment coordinator
> Agency Communications Division
> Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
> 512-239-4516
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
>>>> On 1/5/2011 at 5:29 PM, in message
>>>> < <EMAIL REMOVED> >, "Webb,
>>>> KerryA" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> 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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