WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: PDF editing and Jaws

for

From: Jonathan Cohn
Date: Jan 9, 2018 8:46AM

Great answer Karen. My only addition is that where possible most of the
work should be done in the source document before conversion into PDF. If
you have the original document and turn on speaking of text attributes you
can verify that strings of text that have identical attributes have the
same style and that graphics are given appropriate alt tags. I am sure
there is more than that since my PDF skills are very rusty to say the
least.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Cohn


On Tue, Jan 9, 2018 at 9:05 AM Karlen Communications <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> It is not possible to completely edit a PDF document while using a screen
> reader. While a screen reader might have access to the tags Tree and edits
> can be made to Tags, someone who cannot see the visual representation of
> the document cannot tell if content has been missed and if content has been
> missed, cannot reliably select it and Tag it. This is because a screen
> reader is always in virtual view of the document. We can't reliably tell
> where the missing content is on the page and select it because a screen
> reader (and Text-to-Speech tools) need the content to be tagged in order to
> identify/read it.
>
> This is the reason we also can't reliably use Comments in PDF documents.
> Where we insert a Sticky Note on a PDF document is not necessarily where
> the screen reader is reading due to virtual view of the document.
>
> We also can't add form controls to PDF documents because we need visual
> access to the page in order to place the form controls with their
> corresponding content.
>
> You need some vision to work with PDF documents to make them accessible. I
> use a screen reader but I have enough vision to see if content is missing
> and to Tag it, to place Sticky Notes where they should be and to place the
> form controls where they should be. I would not be able to remediate PDF
> documents if I didn't have some usable vision. I also cannot rely on my
> screen reader to read the information I need in the Tags Tree as it crashes
> a lot or simply goes silent. I have to depend on my vision for most
> remediations.
>
> I can use a screen reader to go down the Tags Tree and then Press F2 to go
> into Edit mode then change the Tag but I have to be able to see how that
> content is displayed visually on the page in order to know what Tag to make
> it. Remediation is a bit easier if I have the source document and the
> source document is accessible (not a desktop published document) because I
> can then open the Tag and match the content with the content in the source
> document. However, if I get something like a <P> Tag with PathPath under
> it, I have no idea where that is on the page or what it represents. I know
> that PathPath is how a <Figure> is represented in a <Figure> Tag and I know
> that you can't have PathPath in a <P> Tag, but what am I "looking" at? A
> figure, parts of a table gridline? A space between words? Part of the
> background? And without being able to see these types of errors and
> remediate them, I would have to pass the document along to someone who can
> see the Tag and the corresponding content to make the remediation.
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>