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Re: couple of questions

for

From: chagnon@pubcom.com
Date: Feb 6, 2018 3:21PM

Some comments.

1. Yes, Duff's right. Let Microsoft know you want its Export to PDF/Save as PDF utilities to make accessible PDFs. Right now, they don't. See Duff's link below for details. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/how-do-i-give-feedback-on-microsoft-office-2b102d44-b43f-4dd2-9ff4-23cf144cfb11#platform=Windows

2. We create accessible PDFs from PowerPoint using Adobe's PDFMaker plug-in (ribbon). At some point in 2017, this workflow no longer produced correctly tagged lists. They come out with P tags, not the compound L/LI tags.

IIRC, this happened after Adobe updated PDFMaker to its current version, so I'm leaning toward pointing the PointPower-PDF finger at them for this problem. However, having been in software development and testing for more decades than I'd like to admit, it also could have been something Microsoft did during a PowerPoint update. Either company could have produced the bug. Or both.

Both companies have been notified of the problem, but I have no crystal ball as to when -- or if -- it will be corrected.

3. RE: artifacting the graphic pieces, InDesign has the tools for users to indicate that certain text frames, graphic frames, and paragraphs of text should be artifacted when the PDF is exported. I don't want to have to remediate those devils in every PDF I make, or every time I export to PDF from the same source document.

None of Microsoft's products has a similar tool and I miss it every time I have to work in MS Office.
Now there's another request to make to Microsoft!

—Bevi

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Bevi Chagnon, founder/CEO | <EMAIL REMOVED>
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PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting ' training ' development ' design ' sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
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-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Duff Johnson
Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2018 1:56 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] couple of questions

> The PPT to accessible PDF workflow has some shortcomings and also some tragic bugs that were recently introduced by either Microsoft or Adobe (such as lists coming out as P tags).

If Microsoft includes an "export to PDF" feature in PowerPoint (and they do), then Microsoft can make an accessible PDF file. It's up to them, but they attend to these sorts of details the same way every software company does: based on customer demand for it.

This link visits a page providing instructions on how to send Microsoft feedback about their software. You can do it from within PowerPoint itself:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/how-do-i-give-feedback-on-microsoft-office-2b102d44-b43f-4dd2-9ff4-23cf144cfb11#platform=Mac <https://support.office.com/en-us/article/how-do-i-give-feedback-on-microsoft-office-2b102d44-b43f-4dd2-9ff4-23cf144cfb11#platform=Mac>
> But no matter how well you construct the PPT, you'll still have a myriad of graphic parts to artifact manually in Acrobat after the PDF is made because there is no way to label anything as an artifact in PPT.

As above; this is 100% up to Microsoft; it has nothing to do with PDF. Note that Adobe's software is only one of several that can remediate artifacts.

> One idea: we've moved many of our presentations to Adobe InDesign where we have micro-control on everything and can export a perfect (or very nearly perfect) accessible PDF that looks like a PowerPoint...but better!

Yep, that's a fine solution… for people who can deal with InDesign. PowerPoint users - especially those with Section 508 obligations - should let Microsoft know that PowerPoint should be doing a better job at PDF output!!

Duff.