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Re: Longdesc and PDF (was:HTML5 Image DescriptionExtension (longdesc) is Proposed Recommendation)

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Dec 7, 2014 12:13PM

Thanks Olaf.
I agree with just about everything you said. (Wow, we've reached consensus
on something! grin)

Just to clarify: the US federal law about providing electronic versions of
all printed documents precedes Section 508 regulations. It was passed
sometime in the 1990s and was intended to provide electronic archival
versions of all published federal material. Essentially, the printed volumes
were deteriorating, and the original source files (word processing, desktop
publishing, etc.) were getting lost on a bazillion agency file servers.

So in that respect, that particular electronic version should match the
printed version, but I'm not a die-hard on this.

I have one concern that makes me hesitate about adding an appendix of
longdesc; in the sample I'm using (300+ pages with 100+ statistical charts)
it will add about 30-50 more pages to the printed document. My agencies
don't have the budget to cover those additional pages, so the idea has been
nixed by upper management. No additional money can be spent.

One option that has worked for some of these charts is to put a table with
the chart's data just below the graphical chart. This gives all readers,
disabled or not, access to the hard data and in a format that's navigable by
A.T. But again, that adds to the printed page count and therefore the cost
of printing and distributing.

XMP metadata might be the most efficient way to go, but heck, we don't even
have a predefined field for regular Alt-text, let alone longdesc!

Is there a chance that our WAI listmembers and Adobe's Andrew K can take
these ideas regarding XMP metadata back to the their camps? I'm told these
fields can't be added to their programs until the fields are standardized at
the international level. I'm under the impression that means ISO and
WAI/W3C, correct?

We need something to fix this shortcoming fairly quickly.

—Bevi
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