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Re: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF

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From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Dec 4, 2017 4:51AM

>
> what everyone considers to be the average time it takes them to make a
> single page document (Word, PDF, HTML)
> that is inaccessible and output it as an accessible PDF.
>

I'm afraid the scale of different is logarithmic different for simple and
complex cases, so there is not realistic answer for this.

For example, if you have a simple Word document with a couple of (properly
marked up in Word) headings, it is hardly any time.

An identical looking page that was an image of the same text, that needs to
be OCRed and structured by hand would take a lot of time.

If there are more complex structures (tables, quotes etc) the time goes up
again. If there are images that need alts, or video content, the time goes
up again.

For a 100 page document from a good Word source doc, you might spend 5
minutes. An identical looking doc from an un-structured indesign source
might take 5 days. It is that much difference, so any 'average' would be
wildly different depending on what the sources were.

If you are working with a PDF doc then the difference is mainly that you
can't work on the source, so it had better be the final version as any
changes from the source will undo your work.

I haven't really tackled HTML to PDF as generally if you have an accessible
HTML version, you don't also need an accessible PDF version.

I hope that helps in some way, but sorry there isn't a nice answer!

-Alastair