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PDF Help Desk

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From: Metzessible
Date: Sep 9, 2017 10:47AM

Hi there,

I got bored last night and started a new repo on my github to provide a way
for people to help other people make more accessible PDFs. You can find it
here (in it's beautiful, currently unpopulated state):

https://github.com/metzessible/PDFHelpDesk

I'm aware there's a lot of information out there on how to make PDFs
accessible, but the resources tend to vary on what's important or relevant
in terms of document accessibility. It also seems like there's conflicting
information out there from experts on how to handle PDF in the first place.
I'm also aware that many accessibility experts simply advise doing
something else instead. While that's great and all, PDFs are still being
created resulting in a lot of terrible documents out there.

Further, now that the ISO has released ISO 32000-2 (
https://www.pdfa.org/publication/iso-32000-2-pdf-2-0/), the methods that we
use to tag PDFs are going to change eventually. This is bound to cause more
confusion, frustration, and gnashing of teeth. My hope is to create a
helpful resource for people who perhaps help create a consensus for what an
accessible PDF is supposed to look like. It'll also be an inevitable place
for me to post examples of things I come across in the wild and how to go
about fixing them.

Hopefully this will become a decent place for those stuck remediating
documents with little to no guidance, since ignoring it for so long hasn't
really made the problem of inaccessible PDFs go away. In any case,
hopefully I'll figure out how to actually use Github a bit better to make
the most of it. I'm open to suggestions, and apologies in advance for the
snark in the readme.

Cheers,
Jon Metz