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Thread: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
Number of posts in this thread: 12 (In chronological order)
From: Joe Clark
Date: Tue, Feb 28 2006 1:00PM
Subject: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
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>I do not believe that the burden of responsibility for accessibility
>lies exclusively with the document author.
Indeed not. The software also has something to do with it, where
"software" includes file formats and applications.
>PDF is the worst offender in this category.
Hardly.
Tried to read a Visio file lately?
>PDF reading is free for able bodied and it is costly for disabled.
Acrobat Reader is free, as is Preview on OS X and as are a number of
programs for Linux.
>Maybe Adobe should charge $25.00 for Acrobat Reader and use the
>revenue to pay for real accommodation.
How about a few hundred for Acrobat Pro?
>Adobe has claimed that PDF is a "default standard",
It is.
>but PDF does not play by the rules of a real standard. W3C has
>created real standards.
W3C is a failure at creating real standards *for accessibility*.
Meanwhile, two PDF variants have gone through the international
standardization process. The PDF/Universal Access committee, whose
telephone call I will be joining in four minutes, intends to do the
same.
> The difference is that W3C expends lots of energy and time making
>its standards effective.
The precise opposite is true. The W3C can't be relied up on for any
help whatsoever.
> The PDF community has waited for accessibility to be demanded.
I don't know how to parse that ungrammatical sentence, but I assume
it means Adobe didn't take accessibility seriously until the
complaints became serious (and Section 508 came into effect), which
is of course true.
>The user agent, Acrobat Reader, produced by Adobe really does not
>provide equal access in quality. Listening is good when you have no
>other option, but a lot of material is terse and requires some kind
>of static medium so the information can be absorbed at the reader's
>pace of understanding. That is why static formats like Braille and
>alternative print are needed.
I agree that Braille support in Acrobat is poor.
> Adobe provides only one access for individuals with limited or no
>sight, voice output.
No, you can reflow documents and change colours.
>The format manufacturer, its author, has the responsibility to make
>a format that is accessible to the level of the highest current
>public standards.
No, we're gonna do better than that.
> It is also a manufacturer's responsibility to make it easier to
>produce accessible material than inaccessible material. This applies
>most to manufacturers of authoring tools, but manufacturers of file
>formats must take responsibility if it is trivial to produce and
>disseminate documents that are profoundly inaccessible. PDF images
>of text documents are major violators. Adobe's excellent image
>compression algorithms make this process efficient, and it is used
>extensively.
[shrug] PDFs are databases and you can put pretty much whatever you
want into them. If you're thick as a brick and use scans of text,
then there's not much we can do for you except attempt to educate.
Some software, like InDesign, enables tagged-PDF production
automatically, and I have produced many two-column documents that
pass the accessibility checker on the first go. Application support
is poor but *not nonexistent*.
>My purpose is not to bash Adobe or PDF. Adobe's contributions to
>computing are among the greatest in the industry, and PDF is a
>brilliant format. I would just like to read my information at a
>comparable level of quality, effectiveness and price. That is not
>too much to ask. Right now the PDF community does not make that
>possible.
I just don't know what you mean by "PDF community."
Off to help fix the problem.
--
Joe Clark | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>;
Expect criticism if you top-post
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Feb 28 2006 11:20PM
Subject: Re: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
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/
From: Martin Pistorius
Date: Wed, Mar 01 2006 6:30AM
Subject: Re: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
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 ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS 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/
>
>
>
From: Karl Groves
Date: Wed, Mar 01 2006 6:50AM
Subject: RE: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
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 ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web: http://www.user-centereddesign.com
>
From: Ouida Myers
Date: Wed, Mar 01 2006 9:10AM
Subject: Re: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
Please tell me more about PDF files. I thought tagging them made them
accessible.
Tagging is something that is available in Pro but not Standard. I used
this feature to establish document structure and reading order.
Ouida
Ouida W. Myers
Grant Consultant and Administrator
Instructional Technologies
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
6364 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27601-6364
(919) 807-3271
FAX (919) 807-3290
http://www.ncwiseowl.org/Impact/div_it/
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Telephone (919) 807-3761
Fax (919) 807-3767
>>> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = 3/1/2006 1:16 AM >>>
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/
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Wed, Mar 01 2006 9:30AM
Subject: RE: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
> Tagging is something that is available in Pro but not Standard. I
used this feature to establish document structure and reading order.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_overview.html
You can add tags in Acrobat Standard, but to edit the tags or use the
newer, more advanced tools for reordering the reading order you need
Pro. Pro also gets you LiveCycle Designer, which allows you to create
accessible forms.
AWK
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Accessibility Engineer
Adobe Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
From: John Gugerty
Date: Wed, Mar 01 2006 11:10AM
Subject: RE: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
If you add security settings using Acrobat 7.0, the save as, copy, and
print options do not work. Other tools might be available to someone who
wants to override the permissions settings, but the options below are
disabled for the user with Acrobat. A sample is attached. Its security
summary is as follows:
method: password secudrity
document open password: no
permissions password: yes
printing: none
changing document: not allowed
content copying or extraction: not allowed
commenting: not allowed
content accessibility enabled: allowed
document assembly: not allowed
>>> "Karl Groves" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > 3/1/2006 7:45:22 AM
>>>
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 ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web: http://www.user-centereddesign.com
From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: Wed, Mar 01 2006 11:20AM
Subject: RE: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
There are many helpful resources on the web related to this if one
searches for them.
Allen Hoffman
From: Karl Groves
Date: Wed, Mar 01 2006 11:50AM
Subject: RE: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
Attached is the first 3 pages of your PDF. ;-)
Karl L. Groves
User-Centered Design, Inc.
Office: 703-729-0998
Mobile: 571-214-1714
E-Mail: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web: http://www.user-centereddesign.com
<http://www.user-centereddesign.com/>;
_____
From: John Gugerty [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 1:08 PM
To: 'Martin Pistorius'; 'WebAIM Discussion List'; Karl Groves
Subject: RE: [WebAIM] PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
If you add security settings using Acrobat 7.0, the save as, copy, and print
options do not work. Other tools might be available to someone who wants to
override the permissions settings, but the options below are disabled for
the user with Acrobat. A sample is attached. Its security summary is as
follows:
method: password secudrity
document open password: no
permissions password: yes
printing: none
changing document: not allowed
content copying or extraction: not allowed
commenting: not allowed
content accessibility enabled: allowed
document assembly: not allowed
>>> "Karl Groves" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > 3/1/2006 7:45:22 AM >>>
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 ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web: http://www.user-centereddesign.com
From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Wed, Mar 01 2006 12:20PM
Subject: RE: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
> 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?
One should never use security as a reason for picking a particular
publicly accessible web resource.
Consider ANYTHING posted online to the public as insecure. If you need
it to truly be secure, you need to consider encryption (which will only
keep it secure in transit).
Most (all?) of the attempts at adding 'security' to web assets and
documents result in just annoying abled folks and seriously blocking
access to anyone that may not be fully abled.
-Darrel
From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Wed, Mar 01 2006 1:30PM
Subject: Re: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | Next message →
> There are many helpful resources on the web related to this if one
> searches for them.
> Allen Hoffman
This is a mailing list that has a lot of diverse users, some of them
are relying on listening to their emails, or read them on small or
zoomed devices. Could we try at least here to use email at its least
obtrusive?
Top posting is rude and takes your answer out of context. This might
lead to even worse quoting and unnecessary disagreements.
cheers.
From: Joe Clark
Date: Fri, Mar 10 2006 1:40PM
Subject: Re: PDF access (was Screen-reader updates)
← Previous message | No next message
>My question is other than converting the document into plain HTML
>what other options are there?
Converting documents into semantic HTML with CSS.
>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.
I don't know what that latter point means. You can produce tagged
PDFs from PowerPoint documents, albeit quite inelegantly, on Windows.
There's also the PowerPoint accessibility plug-in.
<http://www.google.com/search?q=powerpoint+accessibility>;
While this is all still crap in a lot of ways, it's less serious crap
than just publishing PowerPoints. When we get a PowerPoint-to-S5
converter, even with the latter's limitations, I shall be a happy man.
<http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/>;
<http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2005/12/19/presentation/>;
--
Joe Clark | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>;
Expect criticism if you top-post