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Re: PDF files and Section 508 Compliance

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From: Michael D. Roush
Date: May 16, 2005 12:27PM

> If you aim at making the site compliant (to 508 or WCAG 1.0 or whatever),
> just remember that you are then not aiming at accessibility. What you
> would be doing would mostly be in accordance with improving accessibility,
> but as a matter of objectives, compliance as a goal mean that you aim
> at making _yourself_ (your organization) pass something, instead of trying
> to let _disabled people_ make the best of your website.

This discussion of the use of PDF formats on a website leads me to
something I'm coming up against now. The organization that I work for
wants their web site to be accessible. They also want people to be able
to go to our website and download our application. The original
application is on paper. The electronic document was lost long ago. It
is in the process of being redone in Microsoft Word.

So, at the moment, my only options for posting the employment
application involve scanning the current application and making a
horribly ugly and huge PDF file out of it, and scanning the current
application and making a horribly ugly image file out of it. Neither is
a very elegant solution. Some people would be able to get the
application, some would not.

But, here's my quandry....

Even when I get a nice, pretty Word document and a nice pretty PDF
document to put on the Web, that's still not really accessible, is it?
I mean, anything that is designed "for print" automatically negates the
possibility of some people to be able to fill out the application. Do I
need to develop an html form that could be filled out online in order to
truly make this setup accessible? It strikes me that I would need to
provide some way for people using an online form to go back and access
information later to make changes and such, but that would require some
sort of a login/authentication process, and that goes beyond what is
required for a paper application.

I'm lost as to what to do that doesn't present a big accessibility
problem - even if I had .doc, .pdf, .txt formats and an html form all
available on the site. Right now, frustration tells me that providing
no access to the application to anyone seems to me to be the only
equitable solution.

Suggestions?