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Re: Actual Text attribute

for

From: Karlen Communications
Date: Jul 30, 2011 5:06PM

Actual Text should not be used for a page or pages of scanned text. The intent is that it is used for images of text...small pieces of text.

One issue is that adaptive technology has buffers and each adaptive technology has a different size buffer.

I've experienced PDF documents with so much content in an Alt or Actual Text attribute that the documents could not be opened while the AT was running and since AT must be running when an application/document is open, this renders the PDF inaccessible.

Theoretically, Actual Text is treated by the AT as if it were text and not an "alternate for text" or an image.

If you are working in InDesign, it is always better to work with text and not images of text. Using text let's you add the appropriate structure such as headings, lists and tables..which you can't do in either Alt or Actual Text.

Scanned images also create other accessibility problems if you have to reduce the size of the PDF...Whether it is text or images.

Cheers, Karen

Out of Office, Sent from my iPad

On 2011-07-30, at 5:44 PM, "Bevi Chagnon" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> That's Actual text, not Alt-text.
>
> I'm wondering how screen reader users and their AT handle this feature in
> PDFs. I haven't yet seen Actual Text used or read in the real world.
>
> From Adobe's Help for InDesign CS 5.5:
>
> "PDF also supports actual text, in addition to Alt text. Actual text can be
> applied to graphic elements that visually look like text. For example, a
> scanned TIFF image. Actual text is used to represent words that were
> converted to artwork. Actual text is only applicable for tagged PDFs."
>
> My question: if Actual Text attributes are added to text-like graphics in
> PDFs, are they automatically read by default by screen readers? Or do AT
> users have to manually read them? Do they even know that the attribute is
> there for them to read?
>
> -- Bevi Chagnon
>
>
>
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> Bevi Chagnon | <EMAIL REMOVED>
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> PubCom - Trainers, consultants, designers, and developers
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