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Thread: Quark to tagged pdf

Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)

From: Sandy Clark
Date: Wed, Jun 09 2004 8:27AM
Subject: Quark to tagged pdf
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This one is a fun one.
&nbsp;
Just got put on a project where the client
is tasked with creating "accessible" pdf's of booklets they have done in
Quark/Mac for a government entity.
&nbsp;
They are required to do PDF's because they
'must look exactly like the printed booklet'.&nbsp; However since it is to go on
a govt web site, they must be "accessible".
&nbsp;
(I'm putting all that in quotes because I
know that PDF's are not totally accessible).&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Has anyone got quark to export tagged
information for use with Acrobat 6?&nbsp; We've tried to take an existing PDF
that was printed from quark and tag it, but have run into severe issues.&nbsp;
I've been searching the web for about 5 hours now and I can't get any good
answers.&nbsp; (I also have a question into Quark's technical support, but who
knows what they will say).
&nbsp;
Any and all help anyone can give me would be
much appreciated.
&nbsp;
Sandy Clark

From: Zwack, Melanie
Date: Wed, Jun 09 2004 8:36AM
Subject: Re: Quark to tagged pdf
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Message

Hi,
Yes, I work on these kinds of files.
It's not a nice process, and in some cases it is determined that
it is not possible to do
The one work around is to place text that is jumbled in the alt
tag of figure elements -
I can explain this further - just let me know!
Melanie

From: Sandy Clark
Date: Wed, Jun 09 2004 8:44AM
Subject: Re: Quark to tagged pdf
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Message

Please, please explain it
to me.!!!! On list, off list, at lunch.<;grin>;

From: mzwack [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] Sent: Wednesday,
June 09, 2004 10:36 AMTo: WebAIM Discussion ListSubject:
Re: [WebAIM] Quark to tagged pdf

Hi,
Yes, I work on these kinds of files.
It's not a nice process, and in some cases it is determined that
it is not possible to do
The one work around is to place text that is jumbled in the alt
tag of figure elements -
I can explain this further - just let me know!
Melanie

From: Eoin Campbell
Date: Thu, Jun 10 2004 3:45AM
Subject: Re: Quark to tagged pdf
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I would also be very interested in knowing more about how to
make Quark-generated PDFs more accessible.

BTW, I have started to advise my clients to use Adobe InDesign
for typesetting, in order to make accessible PDF generation
part of the production process. I'm not familiar with
InDesign myself, and initial feedback is that it is not that
straightforward to generate accessible PDFs from InDesign either.
Are there any tutorials available?

At 08:55 10/06/2004, Melanie Zwack wrote:

>Yes, I work on these kinds of files.
>It's not a nice process, and in some cases it is determined that it is not possible to do
>The one work around is to place text that is jumbled in the alt tag of figure elements -
>I can explain this further - just let me know!
>Melanie
>
>

From: Zwack, Melanie
Date: Fri, Jun 11 2004 11:08AM
Subject: Re: Quark to tagged pdf
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That is very interesting to hear about InDesign, because InDesign is one of
the programs that Acrobat lists as one of the 5 programs that will convert
very nicely to accessible PDF format. The 5 programs they list in their
documentation are: Microsoft Office 2000 (Word, Powerpoint, Excel),
Microsoft Office XP (Word, Powerpoint, Excel), InDesign CS, FrameMaker 7.0,
PageMaker 7.0. And, given the fact that InDesign is an Adobe Product and
Acrobat is also created by Adobe I'm real surprised to hear about your
experience with InDesign.

I've personally worked with MS Office 2000 & XP, and have had very nice
results converting those documents over to accessible PDF format. You can
really tell that they have worked specifically with Adobe to make this
conversion very nice. In fact, recently I have learned that I can add the
alt tags right in Word (PowerPoint, Excel), and they convert right over to
accessible PDF format.

***The methods I use for converting Quark to accessible PDF format (Quark
has not worked with Adobe Acrobat like the 5 programs above, so often the
conversion is not real smooth, and if its too bad it may not be worth the
trouble of converting to accessible PDF format, but rather do HTML or
ASCII):
- I never seem to hear of people converted Quark documents to accessible PDF
format, but we have been having some success with these documents here. Some
of it, I believe has to do with how the document has been developed. Right
now, we are trying to work with our desktop publishers to develop the
products differently, so the conversion process can be improved.
- If there is a problem with jumbled text on a page, the text for that page
can be placed in an alt tag of a or tag on that page. If
necessary, you can even add all the text from the page into the alt tag (or
several pages of text if necessary) to get the page to read correctly. Then,
you would delete out the problem tags, so the tag with the
alt tag containing all the text will read the text correctly.
- These methods are really only advisable for a Quark document conversion to
accessible PDF

BTW, Here's an Accessible PDF Learning Center on Planetpdf.com:
http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=3456

From: Joe Clark
Date: Sat, Jun 12 2004 10:31AM
Subject: Re: Quark to tagged pdf
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> I would also be very interested in knowing more about how to make
> Quark-generated PDFs more accessible.

By deleting Quark from your system, forswearing never to deal with that
appalling company again, and switching to InDesign?

> BTW, I have started to advise my clients to use Adobe InDesign for
> typesetting, in order to make accessible PDF generation part of the
> production process.

And because it's massively better in other ways.

> I'm not familiar with InDesign myself, and initial
> feedback is that it is not that straightforward to generate accessible PDFs
> from InDesign either.

Then don't trust "initial feedback."

I have had no difficulty whatsoever auto-exporting multicolumn tagged PDFs
that pass the Acrobat accessibility checker on the first go. I assume the
designers providing the initial feedback aren't using properly-threaded
frames.

--

Joe Clark | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Accessibility
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