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Re: Acrobat Accessibility Check vs. PAC 3.0?

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From: Philip Kiff
Date: Jul 31, 2018 7:10AM


Alan, I've seen folks mention the CommonLook Validator, but their
website doesn't make it clear that it is intended for free use, they
tell you to contact them for a "free trial" version:
https://commonlook.com/accessibility-software/commonlook-pdf-validator/

Does their license allow ongoing use without purchasing the product?

Phil.


On 2018-07-31 8:51 AM, Alan Zaitchik wrote:
> Bevi,
> I have found that the free CommonLook Validator plugin finds a lot more issues that Acrobat's Accessibility Checker. (And you can select the standards you're checking against.)
> Even allowing for fact that some reported failures may be false positives, is there a reason not to start with Validator?
> (I have no experience with PAC 3.0.)
> A
>
>> On Jul 30, 2018, at 6:59 PM, < <EMAIL REMOVED> > < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>
>> We find that no one tool finds everything.
>> We recommend that our clients run the Acrobat checker first, correct the
>> errors it finds, and then run PAC3.
>> Acrobat does not find all errors...not even close!
>> Wish it did a better job, though.
>>
>> --Bevi Chagnon
>>
>> - - -
>> Bevi Chagnon, founder/CEO | <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> - - -
>> PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
>> consulting . training . development . design . sec. 508 services
>> Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
>> - - -
>> Latest blog-newsletter - Accessibility Tips
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
>> Tomlins Diane
>> Sent: Monday, July 30, 2018 3:40 PM
>> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>> Subject: [WebAIM] Acrobat Accessibility Check vs. PAC 3.0?
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> Looking for some feedback on these 2 tools. We have a vendor that is telling
>> us NOT to use Acrobat's A11y check tool, and to instead use PAC 3.0. In
>> house, we've been using Acrobat since we don't yet have an Enterprise
>> solution for PDFs.
>>
>> The vendor states that PAC is the industry standard and "Acrobat should not
>> be used for a checker - That is the reason they were getting so many errors
>> when in fact it was passing when run through the PAC site."
>>
>> So, what might be the reason for what they think are marked differences
>> between what PAC reports as pass/fail/errors vs. Acrobat ? Is it better to
>> use them in tandem? I'm not crazy about a vendor admonishing us to only use
>> the tool THEY use. I have reviewed PDF's they send back to us as 'passed'
>> and the document will have failures in Acrobat.
>>
>> The other wrinkle with PAC is it only works on Windows, and we a growing
>> contingent of folks on Macs.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Diane R Tomlins
>> HCA IT&S | Digital Media
>> Accessibility SME
>>
>>
>> >> >> >> >>
>>
> > > >