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Re: PDF Accessibility

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From: Bevi Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Jul 22, 2011 7:18AM

From my experience, I say "it depends."

The best workflow is to create an accessible source document (such as MS
Word), which in turn produces a very decent PDF that requires the least
amount of tweaking in Acrobat PRO X or CommonLook. In this scenario, you
don't even need CommonLook.

But if you're at the end of the production line and have to fix someone
else's lousy PDFs, then CommonLook can come in handy, especially for tables
and forms.

Both Acrobat and CommonLook can automate things, but the end result is iffy
at best:

1) If it's an untagged PDF and tags are automatically added, how well can
any software - Acrobat or CommonLook - apply an appropriate tag to items
such as headings? These programs will apply tags to the items which partly
meets accessibility requirements, but if they're not the right tags you've
missed the point of accessibility.
Therefore, this feature in both programs doesn't give you everything you
need. A human being will still need to review and adjust the tags that are
created.

2) It's the same with adding Alt-Text attributes. A human being must look at
the graphic and determine whether it's critical information or decorative
frou-frou and write the appropriate Alt-Text content. Rarely can this
process can not be automated.

My recommendation.
CommonLook is worth the cost if you have:
1) Lots of PDFs to remediate and you can't go back to the source documents
and fix the problems there,
2) Lots of PDF forms to make accessible, and
3) Lots of PDF tables to make accessible.

I hope others will chime in with their experiences with CommonLook.

- Bevi Chagnon