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Re: Non-existent Alt-text voiced in PDF

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From: David Engebretson Jr.
Date: Mar 5, 2023 7:25PM

Hi Colleen,

Over the years I've found document authoring products like InDesign are not only inaccessible for me to design documents, as a screen reader user, but also I've found there is a propensity for those tools to output data that _may_ not be PDF compliant. Even to Acrobat.

Also, I've seen visually oriented designers struggle with design tools oriented towards outputting PDF. There are just so many inconsistencies. Sometimes the visually oriented designer will have no problem outputting to a fully WCAG compliant PDF, but sometimes one little problem will perplex them.

What I often suggest with my colleagues is to use a different authoring tool, ensure you've got the original document authoring source, don't rely on Acrobat for remediating all issues, and keep the code simple.

Embedding elements is just going to expose the (what I see as totally apparent) inability for vendors who offer PDF conversion capabilities that are consistent across all platforms. I should explain my humble opinion a little: every software vendor who provides exporting to PDF as a feature of their software should use the same library so the PDF output is consistently accessible with no dependency on the software vendor to figure it out.

I thought that's why the PDF file format definitions moved to an international organization that defines PDF... Adobe dumped the responsibilities for PDF requirements off to the international group many years ago.

InDesign, Acrobat, Microsoft products like Word, Google products, Apple products, etc. There's no consistency in the accessibility of their respective PDF output.

It does baffle me that, since InDesign and Acrobat are both products of Adobe, they don't have deep integration with each other to ensure their products work flawlessly together. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that PDF's are, at their very base, PostScript documents.

The frustration I'm expressing is from many decades of realizing PDF's aren't worth it anymore. Semantic HTML documents that are WCAG compliant are a much simpler way to deal with accessibility issues. In addition: If you need to print something at a print house for visually oriented folks to consume then send the print house an InDesign document so they can print it from that beautiful InDesign document you've spent precious time creating.

I'll quit rambling now. *smile*
David


-----Original Message-----
From: Colleen Gratzer < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2023 4:16 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >; David Engebretson Jr. < <EMAIL REMOVED> >; <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Non-existent Alt-text voiced in PDF

Thanks for your reply, David.

The source file is InDesign. But I've looked in Acrobat and the Alt-text is nowhere in the tag properties.



On 3/5/23 5:49 PM, David Engebretson Jr. wrote:
> What's the original filetype you are working with?
>
> I've noticed authoring tools will often plop artifacts into PDF documents that can't be detected without a deep dive into Adobe Acrobat, or the baseline PostScript for PDF ...
>
> So many variables!
>
> Thanks,
> David
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Colleen Gratzer
> Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2023 8:45 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: [WebAIM] Non-existent Alt-text voiced in PDF
>
> I'm hoping to get some insight on an issue I am having.
>
> I've got a page with a few different non-decorative icons. Some are inside P tags and some inside a list.
>
> They all have actual text applied, which was previously applied as Alt-text. The Alt-text was removed.
>
> I've confirmed in the tag properties in the PDF that there is no Alt-text.
>
> NVDA and JAWS voice only the actual text for the icons *inside P tags* but they read the actual text *and* previously applied Alt-text for the icons *inside the list. *
>
> I have renamed the files with every check in case Acrobat was caching the file content.
>
> I have restarted Windows. I have restarted Acrobat. I have tested this on 2 different computers.
>
> Again, I confirmed that there is no Alt-text set on these icons, even in the tag properties.
>
> I am stumped.
>
>
> Colleen Gratzer
> Creative Boost and Gratzer Graphics
> https://creative-boost.com
> https://gratzergraphics.com
> > > >
> > > >