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Thread: Adding abbreviations in Acrobat 8
Number of posts in this thread: 3 (In chronological order)
From: Dan Conley
Date: Wed, Apr 23 2008 7:40AM
Subject: Adding abbreviations in Acrobat 8
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Hi, I just recently got Acrobat 8 pro so that I could make PDFs of
articles that my institution is publishing. We're very committed to
accessibility, so I've been doing my best to prepare the documents in
Word and so on before converting.
I'm running into a problem with abbreviations, though. I've found how to
expand them... it just doesn't work. I follow the instructions on the
Adobe site (http://tinyurl.com/5tbllp), and it all makes sense, but the
changes are (mostly) never saved. I'll add the alternate text 'Spinal
Cord Injuries' for 'SCI,' then look at the tag again and the alt text
will be blank. Sometimes it changes, but I can't figure out why then and
not other times. Sometimes it changes but then won't change to anything
else, sometimes it changes the abbreviation for *each* tag under the
abbreviation's parent tag...
It's frustrating, because I know what to do but it's not working. Has
anyone else encountered this problem, or know what I may be doing wrong?
--
Dan Conley
Information Specialist
Center for International Information Research and Exchange (CIRRIE)
University at Buffalo, Health Sciences Library B6
Phone: (716) 829-3900 x145
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://cirrie.buffalo.edu
From: Keith Parks
Date: Wed, Apr 23 2008 1:40PM
Subject: Re: Adding abbreviations in Acrobat 8
← Previous message | Next message →
On Apr 23, 2008, at 6:31 AM, Dan Conley wrote:
> Hi, I just recently got Acrobat 8 pro so that I could make PDFs of
> articles that my institution is publishing. We're very committed to
> accessibility, so I've been doing my best to prepare the documents in
> Word and so on before converting.
> [snip]
>
> It's frustrating, because I know what to do but it's not working. Has
> anyone else encountered this problem, or know what I may be doing
> wrong?
>
Dan,
I can't tell you what you might be doing wrong, but I too have found
Acrobat 8's accessibility touch-up tools to be very inconsistent and
hard to work with. Haven't tried adding abbreviation ALT text, but
other seemingly simple tasks (image ALTs, reading order touch-up)
have proven to be very frustrating, with the same results of changes
and attributes applied but then not "sticking" when I went back and
inspected my changes.
Either the program is actually buggy, and simply does not function as
described, or possibly the interface is just extremely *picky* in how
the various windows, tools and controls work, and I'm not operating
them properly. But for me at least, fixing accessibility in Acrobat
has been MUCH harder that it ought to be, given the functionality
that at least in theory is part of the software.
******************************
Keith Parks
Graphic Designer/Web Designer
Student Affairs Communications Services
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-7444
(619) 594-1046
mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/communications
http://kparks.deviantart.com/gallery
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From: John E. Brandt
Date: Wed, Apr 23 2008 3:40PM
Subject: Re: Adding abbreviations in Acrobat 8
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Thank you, Keith for saying this. I have had the same experience with Adobe
Acrobat Professional. I wrote about my experiences in some articles about
accessible documents http://www.mainecite.org/awd/accdocs/article3.html
And, Dan...I think you are safe if you use the procedure of
describing/detailing in the text what the abbreviation means when it is
first used in the document. For example, "Mary was working with a team of
teachers implementing Response to Intervention (RTI) techniques..." This is
one of the methods allowed by WGAG 2.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-TECHS-20071211/G97.html . This is also
the method used in Chicago Manual of Style and American Psychological
Association (APA) style Publication Manual. The exception are with commonly
used abbreviations and acronyms (e.g., IBM, AIDS).
~j
John E. Brandt
Augusta, Maine USA
www.jebswebs.com
-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Keith Parks
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 3:37 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Adding abbreviations in Acrobat 8
On Apr 23, 2008, at 6:31 AM, Dan Conley wrote:
> Hi, I just recently got Acrobat 8 pro so that I could make PDFs of
> articles that my institution is publishing. We're very committed to
> accessibility, so I've been doing my best to prepare the documents in
> Word and so on before converting.
> [snip]
>
> It's frustrating, because I know what to do but it's not working. Has
> anyone else encountered this problem, or know what I may be doing
> wrong?
>
Dan,
I can't tell you what you might be doing wrong, but I too have found
Acrobat 8's accessibility touch-up tools to be very inconsistent and
hard to work with. Haven't tried adding abbreviation ALT text, but
other seemingly simple tasks (image ALTs, reading order touch-up)
have proven to be very frustrating, with the same results of changes
and attributes applied but then not "sticking" when I went back and
inspected my changes.
Either the program is actually buggy, and simply does not function as
described, or possibly the interface is just extremely *picky* in how
the various windows, tools and controls work, and I'm not operating
them properly. But for me at least, fixing accessibility in Acrobat
has been MUCH harder that it ought to be, given the functionality
that at least in theory is part of the software.
******************************
Keith Parks
Graphic Designer/Web Designer
Student Affairs Communications Services
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-7444
(619) 594-1046
mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/communications
http://kparks.deviantart.com/gallery
----------------------------------------------------------
(Objects on your screen may be closer than they appear)