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Re: creation of Accessible PDF documents

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From: Eric Scheibler
Date: Sep 23, 2011 4:09AM

Hello,

ok misunderstanding. The reason why I wrote "especially not Adobe
Acrobat" is that I want to prevent an answer like "just use Acrobat to
correct this after export". My intension is, like Deborah also wrote, to
give the students a way to produce a simple, accessible pdf document
with free open source tools. Yes, the university has bought a few
licenses of Adobe Acrobat but then 40 students must use two or three
PC's and can't do it at home. And after the one exercise they will never
do it again cause of missing software.
I also searched for a method to do it with free software cause I pland
to write a short tutorial. This should not be directed to professionals
but to individuals who are interested in accessibility. This people
don't buy expensive software to insure that pdf's are accessible too. To
use Open Office or something similar would be a nice way for them.

Just think about what would happen if we had the same situation for
producing accessible html pages. Only one expansive software could
create an accessible version of the page... how many web pages would be
accessible today?

I understand the first error but what about the second, the incomplete
paragraphs and headings? Also an Open Office export error?

If the errors can't be corrected by me, I have two choices: change it to
use Acrobat with the disadvantages I listed above or stay with Open
Office and the errors. What about the second option: how problematic are
these errors for the user? I tested my pdf with Jaws and NVDA and can't
find a problem while navigating. How would you rate that? Better such a
non perfect pdf than nothing or if accessible then perfectly without errors?
Or maybe I should include Acrobat in the exercise but also mention that
they at least should use Open Office if they can't use Acrobat in the
future.

Best regards
Eric Scheibler