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Re: Word/PDF accessibility guide

for

From: L Snider
Date: Feb 22, 2016 11:24AM

Thanks Cliff, great resources.

I would like to know more about trying to get MS to do what you suggest in
terms of the tabs.

Anyone use these with Office 2016?

Cheers

Lisa

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Cliff Tyllick < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> For several years, the Texas Governor's Committee on People with
> Disabilities has maintained a set of tutorials on creating accessible
> documents in Microsoft Word 2010:
> http://gov.texas.gov/disabilities/accessibledocs
>
> These tutorials are based on using the Productivity tab (originally called
> the Accessibility tab; many of us switched to calling it Productivity when
> we realized the DAISY Consortium had created their own Accessibility tab to
> optimize use of their reader with Word). When followed, they produce Word
> documents that have the features needed to create PDFs that are almost
> fully accessible. (No matter how well you build the Word document, there
> always seem to be a few things to clean up in the PDF. In particular,
> tables can be made much more accessible in PDF than is possible in Word.)
>
> Our Productivity tab was developed from our Accessibility toolbar for Word
> 2003, the first interface I am aware of that includes only commands that
> support the creation of accessible documents. Changing the interface to
> ensure that authors and editors have ready access to commands that support
> accessibility is essential. And it's as important to get rid of the
> electronic equivalent of kindergarten tools—the different-colored crayons,
> the fatter markers, the safety scissors, and the pot of paste—that are so
> easy to use but cause the document to be inaccessible.
>
> We have just started working on updating these tutorials. If you have any
> suggestions for improving them (I know they're not perfect; your comments
> will help us make sure errors don't get repeated), please send them to me
> and to Mike Moore, who also regularly participates in this forum.
>
> Our tab and instructions for installing it are available with the
> tutorials for free. You may also freely modify this tab to remove features
> that you don't need and add others that you do.
>
> Vision Australia has created a product called the Document Accessibility
> Toolbar, which must be installed as a template:
>
> https://www.visionaustralia.org/business-and-professionals/digital-access-consulting/resources/document-accessibility-toolbar
>
> Their toolbar (actually a tab in Word's ribbon, named Accessibility) has a
> number of features I like. For one, it can export Word to clean HTML, so
> the people who contribute content to your website can write with Word and
> the developer can quickly load the content as HTML. (Oddly enough, although
> the macro correctly changes italicized text to <em> and bold text to
> <strong>, it strips out the Word styles of Emphasis and Strong, rendering
> that content as unformatted text. But it is a beta, and they, too, are
> eager for your suggestions for improving it.)
>
> Although the beta version of the Document Accessibility Toolbar is being
> distributed for free, you must also get a license—either a single-user
> license or a multi-user license. When asked, they insisted that we not
> modify this tab to add features our authors need. Your results may vary.
>
> Both of these tools are based on the same concepts:
> ' No matter how poorly it actually works, people will use a tool that is
> easy to find.
> ' No matter how much they need the results that only it can provide,
> people generally will not use a tool that they cannot easily find.
> ' Once people find a toolkit that seems to work okay, they rarely if ever
> try to find tools it lacks.
>
> Late last year I emailed Microsoft's Accessibility team about the need to
> provide this kind of an interface as one of the standard tabs in Word. (I'd
> call it the Professional tab so even people who know nothing about
> accessibility would use it.) I need to follow up with them, because I have
> had no response. Maybe if they hear the same request from many different
> people they will respond.
>
> If you'd like to collaborate in this effort, please contact me. I will be
> at CSUN, so maybe we could find time to discuss and plan there.
>
> Cliff Tyllick
> Accessibility Specialist
> Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services
> 512-377-0366
>
>
>