WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: PDF on websites

for

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Jun 25, 2013 10:18AM

+1

On 25 Jun 2013, at 18:08, Chagnon | PubCom wrote:

> My job is to communicate one person's ideas to another person.
>
> Sometimes I'm hired by a nonprofit to persuade people about a political or
> social issue.
> Sometimes I'm hired by a corporation to persuade people to buy their product
> or service.
> Sometimes by an educational institution to educate its students.
> Sometimes by a government entity to inform its constituents.
>
> But my job is to communicate using the best combination of words, graphics,
> audio/video, and technologies available to get the message sent, read, and
> understood.
>
> Saying that PDFs should be converted to HTML wipes out one of my best, most
> effective tools for communicating - I doubt my clients will allow me to stop
> making PDFs! The benefits to them are tremendous:
>
> 1) Total control over the appearance of the message. From typefaces and
> color to strategic design and placement of the elements to invoke a
> particular psychological response from the reader, I can't get that level of
> control in HTML.
>
> 2) Succinct navigation. I can build quicker, easier navigation for a large,
> complex PDF than I can into a series of HTML webpages.
>
> 3) Eye appeal. I can create a better-looking PDF than I can an HTML webpage,
> and a better visual appearance translates into a more successful
> communication piece.
>
> 4) One file. A PDF can contain dozens of other documents wrapped up into one
> self-contained package. Easy to send via email or store on a server or in a
> content management system.
>
> 5) Snapshot. Like a camera, a PDF can capture and preserve the state of a
> document at a particular point in time, such as here is the report as of
> last Friday. It can also be secured and made taper-proof. It's often used
> for archival of documents. And it is used as an electronic paper trail in
> institutions and large entities.
>
> 6) Workgroup tool. PDFs are passed around workgroups where members add
> comments. Everyone can see everyone else's comments so issues or portions of
> the document are openly discussed. I can't do this with HTML, not even with
> group collaborative cloud-ware.
>
> Note that so many of these benefits are visually oriented. 90% of the
> information received by someone who is fully sighted is visual information,
> so the bulk of communication is focused on its appearance, then on its
> content.
>
> Therefore, PDFs are not going to go away. I doubt I'll ever hear my clients
> say, "Bevi, stop making PDFs and switch our material to HTML." They'd lose
> so much of their power to communicate.
>
> A better, more effective strategy for WebAIM is to get Adobe, Microsoft, and
> the AT manufacturers to create better tools for PDFs (and other documents)
> accessibility software/technologies. A well-made PDF can be accessible and
> can equally match accessible HTML, but today's tools sometimes make it
> difficult and costly to achieve that.
>
> As a communicator, I want better tools so that I can successfully
> communicate with everyone, regardless of whether they have a disability or
> not.
>
> -Bevi Chagnon
>
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