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Re: PowerPoint accessibility-alt question

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From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Apr 30, 2014 10:16PM

Hi Olaf,
Sorry to disagree with some of what you state. <grin>

My points:

1. My initial post recommended using OpenType fonts specifically because
they have the potential to improve accessibility. That is, Unicode's
standardized character set, when correctly deployed by various assistive
technologies, can provide an unlimited number of characters for all
languages. Right now, the industry says approximately 64,000 characters can
represent the world's languages plus scientific, mathematical, etc.
characters, but in theory the set can be expanded and limitless.

Example: For a GIS coordinate with minutes and seconds to be correctly
voiced by a screen reader, the author should use the specific Unicode
character for minutes and seconds, not the characters for single and double
quotes nor the ones for inches and feet. With TrueType and PostScript fonts,
we stuck with just single and double quotes because the ASCII character set
doesn't have the other characters; consequently, GIS datapoints are
mis-voiced.

So in this example, there's no chance of a GIS data point being voiced
correctly if TrueType is used. None. With OpenType, there's a chance that it
will.

As we discussed a few months back, AT doesn't yet give us voicing of most of
the Unicode character set, so a GIS datapoint won't be voiced correctly
right now, but hopefully that deficiency will be corrected in the future.
(Soon, I hope! My firm works on quite a few maps.) OpenType and its Unicode
character set is our only hope.

2. Since this is a list about accessibility, I really didn't want to bog it
down with many more reasons why OpenType should be used rather than
deprecated TrueType and PostScript fonts. Here's a short summary of other
benefits:

a. TrueType and PostScript use the ASCII character set, which has limited
number of characters (approximately 127), and future incompatibility with
digital technologies. OpenType uses Unicode and therefore has an unlimited
character set (see above). UTF-8 encoding provides backward compatibility
with older technologies (in theory, at least).

b. Authors and developers who create documents for a variety of technologies
— including print, web, mobile, multi-media, and next month's new gadget
—work on both Apple and Windows workstations. Cross-platform sharing of
works-in-progress is critical. OpenType fonts allow them to share project
files between platforms and match the fonts. PostScript and TrueType fonts,
on the other hand, are platform specific, which has caused huge problems
during development for the past 30 years. This problem alone has been a
money pit for the design industry.

c. For database-generated and automated documents, fonts based on Unicode
(OpenType) can be the best way to ensure that what's in the database will
actually translate into the final laid-out document and PDF.

d. Adobe just released TypeKit, its utility for installing and managing
fonts for those using Creative Suite. Given that Adobe InDesign is used to
create the majority of the world's publications (only MS Word and PowerPoint
are used to create more documents, but they're mostly office documents not
designed publications), graphic designers are being encouraged to migrate to
OpenType fonts. In fact, Adobe took its PostScript fonts off the market over
10 years ago and now offers only OpenType fonts. There might be some
significant reasons why they did this! <grin>

Olaf wrote: "where EPUB readers do actually use embedded fonts, OpenType and
TrueType are your best bets."

I work with engineers creating EPUB technologies. Advice from them: ditch
the TrueType and PostScript fonts. It's OpenType, regardless of the flavor.
They are not actively developing their technologies for font technologies
deprecated 14 years ago that use ASCII rather than Unicode.

Olaf wrote:
"- Microsoft doesn't support PostScript flavoured OpenType fonts as well as
it does support TrueType flavoured OpenType fonts"

Would love to know what you've experienced here, Olaf. After many thousands
of documents that have been produced by my firm, we haven't had problems
with any flavor of OpenType with any MS program.

Both Adobe and Microsoft developed OpenType...together. They knew what they
were getting into. Plus, MS Windows has supported OpenType-PostScript since
2000...the same year that OpenType was released. See
http://www.myfonts.com/info/opentype-support-in-applications/

If you have a sample of OpenType problems in a Microsoft environment, I'd
love to see it and learn about it. Please share, Olaf!

Olaf wrote:
"- with maximum cross platform in mind (e.g. for office applications) use
TrueType flavoured OpenType or TrueType (almost always the filename suffix
will be .TTF)"

Again, based on my firm's cross-platform work with thousands of documents,
any OpenType font (PostScript-flavored or TrueType-flavored) converts
seamlessly with no corruption or loss of characters when OpenType fonts are
used in the source document.

Used correctly, that is.

The Unicode character set used by all OpenType fonts standardizes the
characters, regardless of the platform. TrueType uses ASCII encoding, not
Unicode, so upper level characters can become garbled when the file crosses
platforms, or even between workstations using the same platform.

There are some problems that occur, but we find that they are user errors:
— Using the wrong character in the document.
Example: client inserted an accented character in MS Word, but didn't pay
attention to the font. Everything in the document used an OpenType font,
except for this one character which used a TrueType font. That character was
lost when the document was opened on our systems which didn't have that
specific font.

— Using an OpenType font with a limited character set.
Example: client's file used an accented character for an Eastern European
language that was in their OpenType font. When the file was brought into our
system, our OpenType version of that font didn't have that specific
character; our font had a smaller character set (was an older version and
the font manufacturer had released a new version with an extended character
set). We upgraded our version of the font and the problem was solved.

Bottom line from my firm: OpenType.
Don't give a rat's patootie about the flavor, TrueType-flavored or
PostScript-flavored, they work seamlessly for us on both platforms in all
software used for developing for all publishing and digital media
technologies.

R.I.P. to TrueType and PostScript. <wink>

—BJ
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