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RE: Examples Needed for Alternatives to PDF Docs

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From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Jun 22, 2005 1:18PM

Sue,

You may be interested in the USPS AS-508-A, Section 508 Technical
Guidelines, Chapter 6, Section 14, Portable Document Format (PDF) Files
available via the URL:
http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/hand/as508a/508a_c6.html#508hdr78 .

One of the examples in that policy is the USPS Postal Bulletin. You
can access the Postal Bulletin via the URL:
http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/bulletin/pb2004.htm

You might note that the Postal Bulletin provides HTML versions of
all the PDF documents, but for other documents such as USPS Speeches
linked off of www.usps.com, we use a text version.

I won't go in-depth into the difficulties of providing accessible
PDFs as that is based on the proper tags, complexity of the document,
software versions in use, but if I can leave you with only one key idea
it would be that PDF is for printing or displaying on the screen as it
would be printed. There are many user scenarios where even if the PDF
was fully accessible, the alternative text or HTML format would be
preferred.

Regards,


Norman B. Robinson
Section 508 Coordinator
IT Governance, US Postal Service