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Re: Track Changes - Best Practices for showing document revisions in Word, PDF, and HTML?

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From: Philip Kiff
Date: Jan 17, 2018 8:33AM

Thanks, Jim. I gather that using the Track Changes feature in Word is
indeed a good method of showing document changes to most users.

But I need to find a format that can be distributed by a branch of the
government here in Ontario, which like many governments, has a general
policy against distributing MS Word files. I think the policy against
relying on MS Word documents for public files comes about because it is
a proprietary format that requires paid software in order to open it.

There is considerable time pressure on this project, so today I'm
proceeding with the creation of PDF versions. I've decided to use
strikeout to indicate deletions and red underline to indicate
insertions, and then I'm going to add alternative text to the actual
lines used as strikeouts and underlines in order to give screen reader
users a way of figuring out where text changes begin or end. In the tag
tree I will reorder the figures so their appearance in the reading order
matches the proper locations where edits begin and end.

This makes the least number of changes to the previously approved format
that users are accustomed to. And while it continues to use red colour,
it does not rely on that colour as the only way for a reader to identify
where edits occur. I am unhappy about the inclusion of large chunks of
underlined text, which I realize makes it harder for all sighted users
to read, but I couldn't come up with a better visual marker without
restructuring the whole document along the lines that I suggested in my
original post. The possibility of using reversed text was explicitly
rejected by upper management.

I also considered replacing the actual text edits with identical figures
using screenshot images of the text, and then applying alternative text
to those images that repeated the text chunks and also added additional
notes about whether the text was inserted or deleted.

Phil.

On 2018-01-16 1:24 PM, Jim Homme wrote:
> Hi,
> This is just my opinion on the PDF question. I'm guessing that the PDF documents originally came from an MS Office program, like Word, for example. If I were doing this, I would mark up the documents using Track Changes in Word. Also, another opinion, based on some experience as a screen reader user, I have had the most success working with Track Changes in Word using NVDA. I have no useable sight. The way I generally work is I turn on Markup, and I'm pretty sure I use simple markup. I look at the changes to get a feel for what the person wants. Then I turn off all markup and make my changes, then turn it back on to pass back to the other collaborators. I endorse working with Office first, because I feel that as a totally blind person, I have much more control over the editorial process, whereas if I did it in Adobe, I would pretty much be useless.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jim
>
>
> Jim Homme
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Philip Kiff
> Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 3:29 PM
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Subject: [WebAIM] Track Changes - Best Practices for showing document revisions in Word, PDF, and HTML?
>
> I have a Word document that proposes a small set of changes to a set of regulations. The document uses strikeout and redlining (red coloured) fonts to indicate deletions and insertions. I'm trying to figure out the simplest, most accessible way of turning this document into an accessible Word file, and then probably also an accessible PDF and web page.
>
> I see there have been some discussions around this before on WebAIM:
>
> Track Changes (mainly about using MS Word):
> https://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?threadI27
>
> And a couple threads on Strikethrough Text:
> https://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?threadD64
> https://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?threadX09
>
> From these threads, I gather that using MS Word's Track Changes feature can produce Word documents that are pretty accessible (though you'll want to darken the choice of red colour used, I think).
>
> But for PDF, is there really a good option like Track Changes in Word?
> And for HTML, is using ins and del tags good enough, or should I be inserting visual markers in the text - prefixes or brackets or...?
>
> I foresee receiving more of these documents in the future, and I'm leaning towards trying to get this government office to rewrite the list of text changes by peppering the document with visual "Inserted:" and "Deleted:" text markers. And then possibly also including complete "Original" and "Final (After Changes)" versions. And maybe even including a redline/strikeout version as a redundant third copy. But that all seems so cumbersome to me.
>
> Does anyone have better, simpler solutions? Or samples of good documents showing versioning (especially in PDF) that I can look at?
>
> Phil.
>
> Philip Kiff
> D4K Communications
>
> > > > > > >