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Re: clarification please -> PDF/UA

for

From: John E Brandt
Date: Feb 25, 2015 1:27PM

So, I was going to ask the group if the Accessibility Checker built into
Adobe Acrobat Pro (AAP) would accurately assess a file for PDF/UA. According
to the information Olaf provided from the PDF Association, the answer is no
and that the only validator that does this kind of assessment is the PAC:
PDF Accessibility Checker (v2.0). So I checked it out with document that was
initially a VERY simple MS-Word documents (no tables, simple text, a few
links and one in-line image) that had been converted using the SaveAs PDF
utility. It passed the Accessibility Checker in MS Word (latest version) and
essentially passed the accessibility checker in AAP - I had to manually add
the Title even though it was there in the MS-Word version (I think this is a
bug) and verify "manually" that the word order was correct and contrast
ratio sufficient. But the PAC found a number of errors thus deeming the
document NOT to be PDF/UA compliant. Interestingly, one of the "errors"
noted by PAC was the fact that the PDF/UA identifier was missing!

The WC3's document "PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.0"
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20-TECHS/pdf.html gives high marks to both
MS-Word and AAP as the tools to use. Apparently the PDF/UA is a "higher" -
and perhaps unattainable standard. Clearly I can't figure out a way to meet
this standard with any of the tools I have.

So, I guessing that this is bad news if Section 508 Refresh is going to
require the ISO 32000-1 (PDF/UA-1) standard...

~j

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

@jebswebs
www.jebswebs.com