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Re: Announcement: CommonLook Office 1.2: Accessible PDF from both Word and PowerPoint

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From: Duff Johnson
Date: Aug 15, 2012 6:37PM

On Aug 15, 2012, at 6:33 PM, Swamp oodle wrote:

> Not to be too facetious, but the best way to make PDFs accessible is
> to put the content into HTML5 and CSS3. The danger is not that
> someone will change the PDF, or that it won't print exactly the way
> you want, the danger is that it won't be seen at all.

I appreciate this perspective. Undeniably, support for accessible PDF today is less (a lot less) than it should be.

On the other hand, stand-alone fixed-format electronic documents - of which PDF is the dominant type - are a fact of life for all sorts of very good reasons that I won't bore you with unless you want me to.

The issue is really: when are software implementers going to step up to the plate and support accessible PDF as they should?

The answer: when you tell them you want it.

PDF/UA (just published!!) is intended to address the problem by removing the not-entirely-unreasonable excuse that PDF's accessibility features as defined in the PDF Reference (ISO 32000) are fragmentary and vague.

As matters stand today, some implementers scrape the "content" and call the results "reading the PDF". This is inadequate. It might be analogized (highly imperfectly, but for the sake of conveyance to HTML-minded folks) to reading HTML but ignoring CSS.

In PDF it is necessary to process not merely the content but also the "logical structure" for both the logical ordering and semantics of content.

Once PDF accessibility features are more fully supported by implementers in authoring, editing and reading tools you'll enjoy a similar (indeed, highly consistent) experience with AT, comparable to HTML/CSS.

Best regards,

Duff Johnson

President, NetCentric US
ISO 32000 Intl. Project Co-Leader, US Chair
ISO 14289 (PDF/UA), US Chair
PDF Association Vice-Chair

Office: +1 617 401 8140
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