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Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)

From: Dhananjay Bhole
Date: Sat, Feb 11 2023 12:19AM
Subject: PDF accessibility and compatibility with Browsers
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Hello,

Can i know how to remediate PDF accessibility challenges with browsers.
I have remediated a PDF file with Adobe full check and PAC3. It is
fully accessible when i open it through Adobe acrobat. But when i
tested it in safari in MAC environment, It was not rendering
properly, reading order was disterbed.
Can i get any clue how should i address this problem?

Regards
--
Dhananjay Bhole,
Accessibility evangelist,
Cell: +919850123212
Website: http://www.sites.google.com/site/dhananjaybhole

From: Laura Roberts
Date: Sat, Feb 11 2023 5:33AM
Subject: Re: PDF accessibility and compatibility with Browsers
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The browser PDF plugins that open a pdf inside the browser aren't so great.
However, the end user can change their computer settings to open all PDFs
with Adobe Reader or Acrobat instead of inside the browser. Or they can
choose to download the PDF and then open it with Reader.
You could also code your site to open the pdf as an attachment rather than
in the browser or a new window.
Here's an article on how to do that (I've not tried this myself):
https://stuvel.eu/articles/pdfdownload/

On Sat, Feb 11, 2023, 2:19 AM Dhananjay Bhole < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Can i know how to remediate PDF accessibility challenges with browsers.
> I have remediated a PDF file with Adobe full check and PAC3. It is
> fully accessible when i open it through Adobe acrobat. But when i
> tested it in safari in MAC environment, It was not rendering
> properly, reading order was disterbed.
> Can i get any clue how should i address this problem?
>
> Regards
> --
> Dhananjay Bhole,
> Accessibility evangelist,
> Cell: +919850123212
> Website: http://www.sites.google.com/site/dhananjaybhole
> > > > >

From: Steve Green
Date: Sat, Feb 11 2023 9:37AM
Subject: Re: PDF accessibility and compatibility with Browsers
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Laura is correct. Opening PDFs in a browser is a complete lottery and we advise against it.

Chrome and Edge are terrible because they ignore all the tagging. They use heuristics to decide what the headings are, presumably based on font size, and they make all headings level 2 regardless of what the author specified. They also ignore other semantic structure such as lists, which makes it more difficult to navigate within documents and understand them.

Firefox does use all the tagging and gives the best user experience of any PDF reader I have tested other than Adobe Reader, which is the best by far.

macOS opens PDFs in Preview by default. I can't recall much about it other than it didn't properly support the JavaScript a client had put in a fillable form. Worse still, Preview wrecked the document such that if you saved it you couldn't then open it and fill in the form in Adobe Reader or anything else.

I have not tried reading PDFs with Voiceover and Safari.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > On Behalf Of Laura Roberts
Sent: 11 February 2023 12:33
To: WebAIM Discussion List < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] PDF accessibility and compatibility with Browsers

The browser PDF plugins that open a pdf inside the browser aren't so great.
However, the end user can change their computer settings to open all PDFs with Adobe Reader or Acrobat instead of inside the browser. Or they can choose to download the PDF and then open it with Reader.
You could also code your site to open the pdf as an attachment rather than in the browser or a new window.
Here's an article on how to do that (I've not tried this myself):
https://stuvel.eu/articles/pdfdownload/

On Sat, Feb 11, 2023, 2:19 AM Dhananjay Bhole < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Can i know how to remediate PDF accessibility challenges with browsers.
> I have remediated a PDF file with Adobe full check and PAC3. It is
> fully accessible when i open it through Adobe acrobat. But when i
> tested it in safari in MAC environment, It was not rendering
> properly, reading order was disterbed.
> Can i get any clue how should i address this problem?
>
> Regards
> --
> Dhananjay Bhole,
> Accessibility evangelist,
> Cell: +919850123212
> Website: http://www.sites.google.com/site/dhananjaybhole
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Sat, Feb 11 2023 9:45AM
Subject: Re: PDF accessibility and compatibility with Browsers
← Previous message | Next message →

On 11/02/2023 16:37, Steve Green wrote:
> Chrome and Edge are terrible because they ignore all the tagging.

Related, Edge will be working with Adobe to improve its PDF rendering
https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2023/02/08/adobe-microsoft-bring-industry-leading-acrobat-pdf-experience-window-users-microsoft-edge
(hopefully including how it recognises/exposes tags)

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke

From: Peter Shikli
Date: Sat, Feb 11 2023 1:14PM
Subject: Re: PDF accessibility and compatibility with Browsers
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Dhananjay,

The good news is that you need not test for accessibility via browsers,
assistive technology, or any other tool. You must test for compliance to
standards like WCAG 2.1, PDF/UA, etc. It is up to the vendors of those
various tools to make sure they comply to the same standards. This is
what the standards mean by compelling us to be vendor neutral when we
strive for accessibility. From a practical standpoint, there are simply
too many tools out there to test against each one.

The bad news is that accessibility is not assured by passing the hundred
or so automated test tools, including the ones you cite. Those are great
starts, but they report too many warnings that could go either way. A
trained human accessibility analyst has to examine those warnings and
remediate what is needed.

There is a place for testing with browsers and other tools however. It's
called usability testing, and it comes after passing accessibility. This
is where disabled users who are experienced with their assistive
technology can be quite helpful. Consider Steve Green's experience with
the junkyard full of adverts. Recreating the terrible user experience of
the sighted user for the disabled user is accessible, but a minimalist
destination rather than our proper goal.

Cheers,
Peter Shikli
Access2online Inc.
503-570-6831 - = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.access2online.com
Prison inmates helping the internet become accessible