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Re: PDF/A accessibility

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From: Duff Johnson
Date: Aug 9, 2011 4:57PM

On Aug 9, 2011, at 6:00 PM, Ron Stewart wrote:

> I think at this point that we may be talking past each other. Please put my
> comments in the context of an individual with a print related disability
> using PDF content in a modern educational environment.

...the target end-user (among others) for ISO 14289 (PDF/UA)...

> If you continue to purport that the current implementation of PDF/UA

A point of clarification... PDF/UA is an International Standard (ISO 14289). It is not an "implementation" - that word is typically used to refer to software itself, not to the rules that govern the behavior of software.

> is
> satisfactory from the position of persons with print related disabilities
> then I think you are in fact being disingenuous. You admitted there were
> shortcomings in our conversation at ATIA Chicago, but now you are saying
> that that is not the case?

Ron, that was almost a year ago, and quite frankly, I'm don't recall what shortcomings you and I were referring to at the time. There are shortcomings everywhere, including in PDF. PDF/UA attempts to address those shortcomings as they relate to accessibility. There are some things PDF/UA cannot address because they don't (yet) exist in PDF itself. Some of these items will be addressed in PDF/UA-2, which will be based on PDF 2.0. These are not, however issues that you've raised.

> Yes I am talking about content reading order, what other reading order is
> relevant to the effective consumption of PDF based content.

As I stated, "logical reading order" is the concept of interest - NOT "content reading order" which, as I explained, refers to the order in which the computer (as opposed to the user) reads the file.

These are two distinct concepts in PDF (and this fact is itself one of PDF's shortcomings), but nonetheless, the relevance (or lack thereof) of each concept to accessibility is clear in PDF/UA.

> This painting
> the page analogy that you and others continue to use does nothing to resolve
> the fundament issues related to effective consumption of complex PDF based
> content.

The purpose of the analogy is to make clear that for PDF accessibility we care about "logical reading order", not "content reading order". As such, I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make.

> Secondly the issue of maintenance of proper document pagination is
> ignored in your response.

Well, I tried to address your point in my response, but possibly I was too technical? Can you please offer a use-cae for the problem you mention so that I can better address it?

> For those of us who actually prepare and deliver
> fully accessible content these are not trivial issues, and to maintain that
> they are is problematic as this conversation moves forward.

Of course they aren't trivial... that's why it's taken over 6 years and 100 meetings to write PDF/UA! I am simply trying to understand your precise concerns in detail so that I might address them.

Thank you,

Duff Johnson.



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