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Re: Accessibility of Tagged Acrobat PDFs

for

From: Dey Alexander
Date: Aug 13, 2003 10:22PM

Hi Gerard,

Given that you're located in Australia, the following information is
relevant:

Source: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
<http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/standards/www_3/www_3.html#s2_3>;

"The Portable Document Format (PDF) file system developed by Adobe has
become widely used for making documents available on web pages. Despite
considerable work done by Adobe, PDF remains a relatively inaccessible
format to people who are blind or vision-impaired. Software exists to
provide some access to the text of some PDF documents, but for a PDF
document to be accessible to this software, it must be prepared in
accordance with the guidelines that Adobe have developed. Even when
these guidelines are followed, the resulting document will only be
accessible to those people who have the required software and the skills
to use it. The Commission's view is that organisations who distribute
content only in PDF format, and who do not also make this content
available in another format such as RTF, HTML, or plain text, are liable
for complaints under the DDA. Where an alternative file format is
provided, care should be taken to ensure that it is the same version of
the content as the PDF version, and that it is downloadable by the user
as a single document, just as the PDF version is downloaded as a single
file."

I spoke to one of their disability advisors around the time of the
release of Acrobat 6 and he advised that HREOC would be unlikely to
revise their position, as stated above.

Cheers,
Dey



Gerard Corboz wrote:

> I would like to know if anyone has experience with trying to make Acrobat
> PDF documents and forms accessible.
>
> What I'm interested in finding out is if whether or not Adobe's claims that
> Acrobat is accessible are accurate or just marketing fluff.



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