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Re: Tagging issues with Acrobat Pro DC

for

From: chagnon
Date: Apr 11, 2019 11:46AM

Larry, older Braille technologies work with the Order panel.
Newer ones work with the Tags panel, as mandated by the PDF/UA-1 standards.

Only the Tags panel is required for accessibility compliance.

But in reality, end users might use an older technology or a generic
e-reader, so my firm's philosophy is to ensure that the Tags panel is fully
accessible and in compliance, and we attempt to make the Order panel match
it as closely as possible.

This is especially critical in academia where full access to education
materials is the law. If a student uses a low-end tablet with a free app for
reading PDFs, the school must have documents that will work with that. The
good Order panel can be a solution.

With part of my family being genetically predisposed to macular
degeneration, I've worked for many years with those going through vision
loss. Support services (senior centers, social workers, and associations)
often teach their clients how to use Acrobat's Reflow utility (View / Zoom /
Reflow). It's free, built into all versions of Acrobat including the free
Reader, and acts like a e-Book allowing the user to zoom the text to a size
that works for their vision.

Summary: meet the law via the Tags panel.
But be smart and get the Order panel into good enough shape, too. Or the
Content panel, which gives a deeper view of all of the PDF's elements than
the Order panel does, but they both do the same thing.

-Bevi

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