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Nuance PowerPDF Advanced is now Kofax PowerPDF Advanced

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From: Karlen Communications
Date: Nov 11, 2019 10:46AM


Hi Everyone:



Last November Kofax purchased all of the Nuance imaging tools including
Nuance PowerPDF Advanced. For those of you who are following my adventures
in examining the alternatives to Adobe Acrobat Pro DC for tagged accessible
PDF, Nuance PowerPDF Advanced is one of the tools that is an alternative.and
one of the tools being recommended for government agencies and academic
institutions. Last May the Canadian government identified PowerPDF Advanced
as a tool that staff could use to create accessible PDF instead of Acrobat.



I spent about 15-20 minutes on the phone this morning with a customer
service representative from Kofax.



Those of us who purchased Nuance PowerPDF Advanced have not been notified
that our products and licenses are now with Kofax or how we get updates.



My concern is with the commitment of Kofax to keep improving the tagging
capabilities of PowerPDF Advanced.



After my discussion with customer service and a request to hear from the
development team that they even understand what tagged accessible PDF is, I
regret to say that it appears that Kofax has no clue what a tagged PDF is,
why anyone would want to Tag a PDF or whether they will even keep the
ability to Tag PDF in PowerPDF Advanced moving forward.



For anyone who might follow-up with Kofax, they will tell you that all you
need to do is to activate their Text-to-Speech tool and a PDF will be
accessible. I tried to keep them focused on Tags but they kept referring me
to the TTS tool.



If you have a copy of Nuance PowerPDF Advanced, you can contact them and ask
about their commitment to tagged accessible PDF:



Monday-Friday, 9am to 5pm (EST/EDT)

+1 678 631 6202

For help with Product/Sales Inquires, Activation, Licensing, Registration
and Returns.
Kofax PowerPDF Advanced website:
https://www.kofax.com/Products/power-pdf/advanced



If you don't have a copy of PowerPDF Advanced, you can still call and give
them feedback as to the importance of tagged PDF. I think that without our
advocacy, the product will not evolve and the ability to Tag a PDF using
PowerPDF Advanced will be eliminated, therefore eliminating an alternative
to Adobe Acrobat Pro.



I think we also need to ask Duff Johnson of the PDF Association to contact
Kofax and guide them through the understanding of ISO 32000 chapter 14 and
ISO 14289 and how important a client base those of us with disabilities
are.not to mention the legislation around accessible digital content.



Sigh, I just went to the PDF Association website and there is no contact
area! Also, there are parts of the website that do not follow WCAG for
accessibility as some of the images still have their graphic filename. Sigh.



We might also contact procurement people at our organizations to advocate
Kofax to understand and improve tagging of PDF using PowerPDF Advanced.



I think we need to be quite proactive if we want tagged PDF to evolve and
have more options as tools for tagging.



Cheers, Karen