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Re: Office 365 Accessibility Announcement from Microsoft

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From: Whitney Quesenbery
Date: Sep 10, 2016 3:41PM

Duff, I am definitely holding out the optimistic perspective that this is
just the beginning. But, having waited for so long, I do think that it's
important to say loudly and clearly that this is not enough.

One other thing that bugs me on Windows: the lack of a way to set a set of
settings (sic) and use them over and over again. It would be so much easier
to teach someone by showing them the correct setting for their purpose,
saving it in some way, and letting them use it again, rather than having to
keep cheat sheets to make sure that each and every time you check and
uncheck all of the right boxes.

(I'm thinking about programs like Audio Hijack which are great at letting
you set up different recording options, and naming them something
meaningful to you.

Maybe some recipes with explanations of what each setting does would be
helpful. Any takers? Collective effort here on the list?

Whitney

On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 9:41 AM Duff Johnson < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hi Whitney,
>
> > 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.
>
> Interestingly, on MacOS, at this time, Adobe's the same way - to make a
> tagged PDF you have to upload the Word file to Adobe's servers. As of right
> now, neither company seems willing / capable of putting the relevant code
> on the machine itself, for some reason.
>
> > 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.
>
> Thanks for pointing that out! VERY weird!
>
> > 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.
>
> …a slightly more optimistic perspective might hold that it's early days
> for the rollout of this technology, and so it's not all as buttoned-up as
> will be necessary in the big picture.
>
> It's clear they in general, they want to respond to what the users are
> asking for. The more encouragement Microsoft (and Adobe) hear about getting
> it right - and not just as a service - the better!
>
> Duff.
> > > > >
--
*Whitney Quesenbery*
(lists) <EMAIL REMOVED>
(work) <EMAIL REMOVED>