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RE: questions about accessible pdfs

for

From: Duncan Shearer
Date: Feb 25, 2004 1:44AM


There is a pdf accessibility tool called pdfaloud. It may be useful

www.pdfaloud.com

>From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>Reply-To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>Subject: RE: questions about accessible pdfs
>Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 08:58:06 -0500
>
>I create accessible PDFs on a regular basis but I am working on a PC. I
>can't imagine that OS is a restriction (although maybe Linux hasn't caught
>up, yet!) When I started creating accessible PDFs (October 2002), there
>were
>application restrictions - only Word 2000 (and higher) and Adobe products
>(InDesign, PageMaker) were capable of creating accessible PDFs, I don't
>know
>if the application restrictions have been resolved. The issue was that the
>document structure, headings, alternative text for images, etc, were not
>passed to Distiller with any other application - this is not to say that
>Word 97 or WordPerfect or other application did not use headings and so on,
>it is just that the document structure was not sent to Distiller by any of
>the other applications, the information sent was just text size and font so
>that it looked like a heading but it was not tagged with the heading tag.
>In
>a sense, it would be like transfering <h1> and getting <p><font
>size="xx-large"><b> - the appearance of a heading would be there but the
>document structure would be lost.
>
>Personally, my opinion is that if the content is available in HTML,
>accessible HTML that is, then the PDF is just another format of the same
>information and if necessary, does not need to be made accessible because
>accessibility is provided through the web page. In my work, the documents I
>produce that must be accessible PDFs are the only form of this information
>so they must be made accessible.
>
>If you have accessible web pages, you don't need to go to the trouble of
>text pages.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------
>Julian Rickards
>Digital Publications Distribution Coordinator
>Publications Services Section
>Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines
>Phone: (705) 670-5608
>Fax: (705) 670-5690
>
>
> >