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Re: Something About Formatting Word Docs Feels Wrong For Whatever Reason

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From: Karlen Communications
Date: Apr 24, 2019 8:21AM

Yes, I guess I do treat word processed (Word) documents differently. While we don't have access to granular information for characters, words or phrases in PDF, I see no reason not to use them in word processed documents. We also have the "history" of published document guidelines/standards and various Style Guides that provide guidance on the structure of academic content/papers as well as formatting.

PDF come from many sources, word processed documents are only one source. Not every document part in a word processed document maps gracefully to other formats. For example, a Table of Contents for a website appears on every page and every page is only related to the name of the site. Someone (like me) can have a website that evolves over the years to reflect my shifting focus. I still have some legacy content from 2000 on there about basic training for using your adaptive technology. It is still relevant and published in RTF (before we could Tag PDF and needed cross viewability with Macs). In recent years, I've added a page on Inclusion and Inclusive Education. Not really related to education as it encompasses access to education as well as to digital content. Then there was the time (2012) when my municipality was going to eliminate paratransit for which there was another web page. The "flow of content" is not "consistent" and is only related to the "title" of the web site by the fact that this is my website.

Hopefully word processed documents don't represent this constant adding of content that may or may not be related. :-)

EPUB is different in that while you can create an accessible EPUB from a word processed document, there are still parts of a word processed document that are not reflected in the EPUB format.

Word processed documents have their limitations and at some point you, as the document author or content SME determine that you need a more complex layout so move to something like InDesign.

Each application or file type has its own rules, capabilities and tools that may or may not be available in other formats. Whether they are or are not does not limit me as the document author in how content is structured or formatted. And what access to granular information I have or don't have in a file format I convert to does not limit me to using a Style Guide, best practices or parts of a standard when I create content using a word processor...or presentation software.

I go back to when we were first able to Tag PDF documents and people found working in Acrobat cumbersome for documents they were creating at that time. The question was asked of me "is there anything we can do in Word (or native applications) that would lessen the work in Acrobat?" Turns out there was and is. Up until then, almost all training on word processing was based on JiT where as long as it looked the way you wanted it to look, it went out the door. Once we, as a community interested in creating more accessible content, learned what tools we have or should have in word processors, we began to map things to Tags...just as we mapped Section 508 criteria to non-HTML content.

But in the end, if you are working in a word processor, you have tools and capabilities you might not have in other formats like PDF.

I know, rather long answer. :-)

Cheers, Karen