WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: questions about accessible pdfs

for

From: Joe Clark
Date: Mar 1, 2004 2:12PM

Well, kids, Jukka has spoken.

>>This discussion is already a major step up from the typical
>>shibboleth that "PDFs are not accessible!" which I am a bit tired
>>of.
>
>I thought the common shibboleth was either "we need to use PDF" or
>"in Adobe we trust" (including Adobe's marketese about accessibility
>enhancements).
>
>PDF is a serious obstacle to the majority, so the finer points of
>removing some specific impediments relevant to minorities aren't
>that essential in the big picture. Besides, those finer points
>require not only that authors invest money and learning time to buy
>versions of Adobe Acrobat but also that users have programs that can
>utilize the new features.

Well, the options were:

1. keep PDF an inaccessible format that doesn't work with screen readers
2. upgrade PDF and screen readers

Adobe, Freedom Scientific, GW Micro, and Dolphin chose option 2. Of
course you the user have to upgrade. Upgrades are inevitable online.
You can't complain that PDF was inaccessible and then ignore the fact
that PDFs and screen readers were upgraded *to be* accessible. You
can't critique the manufacturers for shirking their responsibilities
when, later, they took on those responsibilities.

Also, several programs output tagged PDFs automatically (among them
Word 2000, InDesign, PageMaker, and FrameMaker); if you already have
those programs or were going to buy them anyway, the added cost and
learning curve are small to nil. (Word2K is trickiest, since you must
use certain defined styles and add alt texts yourself.)

We are at merely the second version of a general authoring tool that
can produce tagged PDFs. (Acrobat 5 was the first, Acrobat 6 the
second.) Acrobat 6.01 is already significantly better than 6.0,
according to Adobe. (I don't see any detailed release notes for
public consumption, but the abstract to a CSUN paper states that 6.01
has improvements:
<http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/2004/proceedings/213.htm>;.) Later tools
will become better still. Remember, it took approximately forever to
prod Adobe and Macromedia into making HTML tools that could produce
valid code. We're still in our infancy here, but many things are
possible already.

>As long as it is common experience that clicking on a link to a PDF
>page produces a _long_ wait and then perhaps a white window, perhaps
>IE crash, perhaps system crash, and sometimes a display of a
>document in a rigid format, I will keep saying "PDFs are not
>accessible."

despite the fact that they are, in fact, accessible when authored
properly. Never mind the facts, in other words.

Talking points:

1. Perhaps now is the time to finally stop using IE for Windows,
especially if it keeps crashing on you.

2. Safari and Firefox on OS X open PDFs right within the browser, and
promptly-- no plug-ins, no special chrome or UI, no nothin'. Some
systems make it ridiculously easy to use PDFs.

Here is how I would reformulate Jukka's objections, in my own words
and with only the tiniest bit of hyperbole:

I already have a browser (a television), with a nice set of
bookmarks (favourite channels programmed into my remote) and a range
of other sites I can visit (all the channels put together). Many of
those channels are already accessible-- I can watch captioning and
even audio description on many programs, and on some stations, I can
watch captions on *all programs*.

Why in the world do I need a new platform (a VCR/DVD player),
with its long, crash-prone new "content" (tapes/discs) that display
documents only in rigid formats (whatever's on the tape or disc is
all I can watch)? Why would I want to make this new platform
accessible?

And even beyond that, why would I want a third platform
(movies), with its long travel times and bug-prone interface
(cellphones going off, people talking through the movie, ads and
trailers ahead of the film, the stench of faux-buttered popcorn)? Why
would I want to make that third platform accessible, as with
captioning and description?

Why can't the entire world standardize on the minimalist
platform I personally like? Why should there be many platforms, and
why in the name of all that is holy should each and every one of
those platforms be accessible? I *just*... *don't*... *get it*.



--

Joe Clark | <EMAIL REMOVED> | <http://joeclark.org/access/>;
Author, _Building Accessible Websites_ | <http://joeclark.org/book/>;
Expect criticism if you top-post


----
To subscribe, unsubscribe, suspend, or view list archives,
visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/