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RE: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)

for

From: Karl Groves
Date: Mar 1, 2006 6:50AM

Martin -

There is no way to protect the author's content.
Open a PDF or PPT document and go to the "File" menu.
In PDF, you'll see an option to "Save as Text".
In PPT, you'll see a "Save As" and the options given include RTF.
If the authors of those documents think that PDF or PPT is going to protect
it from getting stolen, they're wrong.


Karl L. Groves
User-Centered Design, Inc.
Office: 703-729-0998
Mobile: 571-214-1714
E-Mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Web: http://www.user-centereddesign.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of
> Martin Pistorius
> Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 8:29 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
>
> Hi All,
>
> I've been following this discussion about the accessibility
> of PDFs and there is no doubt that its a big issue. My
> question is other than converting the document into plain
> HTML what other options are there?
> I ask this with a particular reason and that is from my
> limited experience, I only get asked to PDF documents and
> even PowerPoints for 1 simple reason to attempt to protect
> the authors content. PDFs do have the advantage that if they
> are protected you can even prevent someone from printing
> them. So what I really would like to know is how do you
> achieve the same sort of security without using PDFs?
>
> I manage a site at a University so if you can give me another
> way to protect the authors content that is accessible without
> using PDF I honestly don't see a need for me to ever use PDFs again.
>
> Best wish,
>
> Martin Pistorius
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jukka K. Korpela" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 8:16 AM
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
>
>
> > On Tue, 28 Feb 2006, Joe Clark wrote:
> >
> >>> PDF is the worst offender in this category.
> >>
> >> Hardly.
> >>
> >> Tried to read a Visio file lately?
> >
> > I never encountered a Visio file on the Web, or on a CD-rom.
> >
> > PDF is one of the top five accessibility problems
> (obstacles), since it is
> > so widespread and causes serious problems to so many
> different groups of
> > people. Even people who have no particular disability
> frequently encounter
> > problems with PDF, starting from the fact that opening a
> PDF file takes
> > much longer than opening an HTML document with comparable content.
> > It all too often freezes the browser, and this is not just an
> > inconvenience if the user does not see or does not
> understand what is
> > happening. It also prevents changing font face and size.
> (Zooming should
> > not be confused with font size changing.)
> >
> > Several recommendations have warned against using PDF as
> the only format
> > for delivering information on the Web, but its use has grown a lot,
> > and the recommendations are being watered down.
> >
> > The reason is simple: when first priority is to have
> documents _printed_
> > (and when people are used to using tools that generate
> PDF), just putting
> > PDF files on the Web is a simple way of dealing with the
> dual publishing
> > problem. The publisher does not care about the implications
> and does not
> > even see them. Besides, he can present excuses like
> references to Adobe
> > statements that say that PDF is OK.
> >
> > This is more or less the answer you'll get from the
> officials if you get
> > any answer when asking questions like "your recommendations say that
> > PDF-only material is no-no, so why do you have so much
> PDF-only material
> > on your site?"
> >
> > --
> > Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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