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Re: PowerPoint accessibility-alt question

for

From: John E Brandt
Date: Apr 24, 2014 4:02PM

I will not defend Apple on this one, but the issue regarding the
inaccessibility of PDF in the Mac OS is with Adobe. The Adobe Acrobat Reader
simply does not work with VoiceOver on the Mac OS. Like many legacy third
party applications for the Mac OS, including Microsoft Office for the Mac,
Adobe has not been willing to spend the money to rewrite the application to
work with VoiceOver. In fairness, it would be an expensive process,
particularly for a piece of software that is given away for free.

Currently, as others have mentioned, you can view/read PDF files using the
free Preview application built into Mac OSX. But this will only read the
text and you will lose all of the tagging including headings and layout
features.

As for making accessible PDF documents with the Mac OSX, the last time I
checked, the only way was with LibreOffice (and perhaps OpenOffice). You can
make an accessible word publisher document and save it as a PDF and it would
retain the proper tagging. Honestly, I haven't checked that for several
years, but I would assume it still works.

~j

John E. Brandt
jebswebs: accessible and universal web design,
development and consultation
<EMAIL REMOVED>
207-622-7937
Augusta, Maine, USA

@jebswebs

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Whitney
Quesenbery
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2014 5:18 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PowerPoint accessibility-alt question

My vote is for inexcusable, especially as the difference is really how the
PDF files are handled under the covers. You'd still make the PDF file the
same way - but it would be a better, smarter file. Of course the results are
a profound difference to users.


On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 8:45 AM, Lisa Snider < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Thanks everyone. I have worked with PCs mainly for the last 14 years.
> I am now using a Mac for my main computer and thought we were further
ahead.
>
> Is it just me or is this inexcusable for 2014?
>
> Cheers
>
> Lisa
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 3:36 PM, Duff Johnson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>
> > > Just wondering....so you have evidence to support that PDF is
> accessible
> > to AT users on Macs and IOS?
> >
> > The correct description of the problem is:
> >
> > "No vendor, Apple included, yet supports accessible PDF on Mac OS or
> iOS."
> >
> > :-(
> >
> > Duff.
>
>
>
> --
> Lisa Snider
> Electronic Records Archivist
> Harry Ransom Center
> The University of Texas at Austin
> P.O. Box 7219
> Austin, Texas 78713-7219
> P: 512-232-4616
> www.hrc.utexas.edu
> > > list messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
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