WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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RE: PDF files and Section 508 Compliance

for

From: Jon Gunderson
Date: May 16, 2005 9:27AM

I think one of the biggest problems with PDF accessibility is
that it is very difficult to know the accessibility level of
any particular document. PDF is very complex and there are so
many authoring options that it difficult to know the level of
accessibility of anything produced without time consuming
testing.

Jon


---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 09:49:39 -0500
>From: "Austin, Darrel" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>Subject: RE: [WebAIM] PDF files and Section 508 Compliance
>To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>
>
>> If possible try to get to the source documents used to
>> generate the PDF in the first place and use the accessibility
>> features of the PDF conversion tools.
>
>If you have access to the source files, then the better
option would likely
>be to post the source file (Word, for instance, can be a LOT
more 'readable'
>than a PDF is for someone using something like JAWS) and then
convert to
>HTML (and PDF if you still want that option too.)
>
>Granted, a big part of all of this is how well
written/semantically
>formatted the source documents are. A lot of folks still use
MS Word as a
>fancy Typewriter, which, in the end, isn't any different than
the PDF...just
>a document hard-formatted to look nice when printed.
>
>Adobe has done and admirable job convincing everyone that PDF
is the be-all
>end-all format out there. I believed it myself for a long
time. ;o)
>
>-Darrel
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Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Director of IT Accessibility Services
Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES)
and
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Disability Resources and Education Services (DRES)

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>

WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
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