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Re: Office 365 Accessibility Announcement from Microsoft

for

From: Whitney Quesenbery
Date: Sep 8, 2016 6:30PM

Unfortunately the "export to PDF" is a welcome step, but not nearly there.
Here are the limitations that Microsoft has confirmed.

1. You can ONLY do this by using a cloud service, with no terms shared, so
no idea what might happen to your file. Beware anyone in sensitive work.

2. Only Microsoft fonts. Their conversion of some that I've tried were
really dreadful. A san serif font similar to Arial turned into Georgia and
destroyed pagination.

3. No Asian languages. Not No Asian Languages In Your Document but they
must be removed from your system settings. Not your word preferences. Your
Mac system preferences. To send a file to the cloud.

4. No options. Just send it and get back what you get.

5. Beware of themes. If you convert a file with a theme, you get something
that looks like it might work. It has tags and other signs of accessibility
but if you look at the reading order for a page it's one big element. No
idea what that means.

Worst of all. Not one bit of this is documented anywhere.

The only hope about it being a cloud service is that it might be updated
faster with some pressure to get a service that meets the needs of a
modern, global world.

Whitney

On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 2:36 PM Jared Smith < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Elizabeth Pyatt wrote:
> > I am not sure how to get an update. Has anyone been able to do that or
> get information?
>
> You must have Word 2016 for Mac. Go to Help... Check for Updates to
> get the latest updates. This adds a Tools... Check for Accessibility
> option to run the checker.
>
> When saving to PDF, there is an option for "Best for electronic
> distribution and accessibility (uses Microsoft online service)". Of
> note is that unlike Word on Windows which generates the tagged PDF
> directly, you can only generate a tagged PDF using this option and the
> online service - it sends your document to an online service and then
> saves the PDF file locally for you. It's quite transparent, but could
> be a security concern for some people.
>
> Jared
> > > > >
--
*Whitney Quesenbery*
(lists) <EMAIL REMOVED>
(work) <EMAIL REMOVED>