WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Australian Government guidance on PDF Accessibility

for

From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Jan 7, 2011 11:39AM

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

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This email, and any attachments, may be confidential and also privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies of this transmission along with any attachments immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------