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Re: Does PDF.JS render acccessible PDF experience?

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From: Philip Kiff
Date: Jun 19, 2024 7:56AM

I think Malthe is right that pdf.js generally tries to support tagged PDF.

My understanding is that the Mozilla team have been actively working on
improving that support over the past year or two. For example, I know
that last year they worked on trying to maintain the tag order and
structures after you "edit" (more properly annotate) a PDF through the
Firefox browser. And their current issue queue includes a variety of
issues that relate to proper rendering of PDF features required for
accessible PDFs - for example, proper processing of merged table header
cells in tables with more than one row header
(https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/issues/18090).

The level of tag support in pdf.js is an active, moving target. But my
impression is that folks who use screen readers still usually prefer to
open PDFs in external PDF reader software?

It would be interesting to see someone do a full comparison of the level
of accessibility support provided by Firefox vs Chrome vs Acrobat.

Phil.

Philip Kiff
D4K Communications

On 2024-06-19 5:15 a.m., Malthe Jepsen wrote:
> HI
> According to this Bugzilla page, pdf.js does indeed support tagged PDF. It's the default viewer in Firefox, and after a cursory inspection of a tagged PDF in Firefox with a screen reader, it seems to render well.
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id†1157
>
> Best
> Malthe
>> On 18 Jun 2024, at 20.27, Duff Johnson< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Jun 18, 2024, at 14:10, Jon Metz< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>>
>>> Well, I don't know if it's for security reasons. I just assumed "security" was why Adobe limits access to the structure in their Reader app.
>> So far as I know Adobe doesn't limit access to the structure in any way…
>>
>> Duff.
>>
>>>