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From: Bevi Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Mon, Sep 07 2009 9:40AM
Subject: Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
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I'm trying to find what the best solution is for inserting upper-level
glyphs into InDesign documents which are later exported as 508-accessible
PDFs. These glyphs are often symbols, such as bullets or scientific
characters, but can also include foreign language characters.

If I insert upper-level glyphs (higher than 255 from an OpenType or Unicode
font's extended character set) into an InDesign layout, the PDF doesn't pass
Acrobat's accessibility checker. Plus, when the glyphs are read by Acrobat's
Read Aloud utility, they're read as "blank" or "dot dot dot" or absolutely
nothing thereby ignoring the glyph.

My client's JAWs reader also isn't reading them correctly (I don't know
which version of JAWS my client is using).

Glyph examples:

From Myriad Pro, the Ohm sign (towards the end of the list) CID 390,
Unicode 2126

Or MS Arial Unicode, the Black Knight chess character, Unicode 265E

From Wingdings, the "checkmark in box" character, 0xFE (this is not a check
box field in a form: instead it's a symbol of a checked box you'd use in a
to-do list).

What's the best way to handle these symbol glyphs?

FYI, I can create character-level tags in InDesign (such as <emphasis> and
<strong>) but they are not retained when a PDF is exported from InDesign.

TIA,
--Bevi Chagnon

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
Bevi Chagnon | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | www.PubCom.com
Government and non-profit publishing specialists for print, web, marketing,
Acrobat, & 508
PublishingDC Group Co-Moderator |
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishingDC
Bevi blogs on Facebook |
www.facebook.com/pages/Takoma-Park-MD/PubCom/139231069223
And she tweets on Twitter | www.twitter.com/pubcom
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Mon, Sep 07 2009 9:10PM
Subject: Re: Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
← Previous message | Next message →

Bev,
The characters you mention are almost certainly not supported by screen readers, no matter the format. Have you tried putting the characters into an HTML or Word document and hearing how they are spoken there? I'm betting you get similar results.

For character-level tags for emphasis and strong, I'm not sure why the tags are not coming through, but usually this information is carried in the accessibility data for text in a PDF outside of the tags. The question really should be "is the emphasis or bold treatment of my text exposed to assistive technologies in the PDF file". I'd need to see it to tell you...

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick

Senior Product Manager, Accessibility

Adobe Systems

= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Bevi Chagnon | PubCom
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 11:38 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: [WebAIM] Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF

I'm trying to find what the best solution is for inserting upper-level
glyphs into InDesign documents which are later exported as 508-accessible
PDFs. These glyphs are often symbols, such as bullets or scientific
characters, but can also include foreign language characters.

If I insert upper-level glyphs (higher than 255 from an OpenType or Unicode
font's extended character set) into an InDesign layout, the PDF doesn't pass
Acrobat's accessibility checker. Plus, when the glyphs are read by Acrobat's
Read Aloud utility, they're read as "blank" or "dot dot dot" or absolutely
nothing thereby ignoring the glyph.

My client's JAWs reader also isn't reading them correctly (I don't know
which version of JAWS my client is using).

Glyph examples:

From Myriad Pro, the Ohm sign (towards the end of the list) CID 390,
Unicode 2126

Or MS Arial Unicode, the Black Knight chess character, Unicode 265E

From Wingdings, the "checkmark in box" character, 0xFE (this is not a check
box field in a form: instead it's a symbol of a checked box you'd use in a
to-do list).

What's the best way to handle these symbol glyphs?

FYI, I can create character-level tags in InDesign (such as <emphasis> and
<strong>) but they are not retained when a PDF is exported from InDesign.

TIA,
--Bevi Chagnon

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
Bevi Chagnon | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | www.PubCom.com
Government and non-profit publishing specialists for print, web, marketing,
Acrobat, & 508
PublishingDC Group Co-Moderator |
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishingDC
Bevi blogs on Facebook |
www.facebook.com/pages/Takoma-Park-MD/PubCom/139231069223
And she tweets on Twitter | www.twitter.com/pubcom
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .

From: ejp10
Date: Tue, Sep 08 2009 6:30AM
Subject: Re: Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
← Previous message | Next message →

Welcome to my favorite black hole in the standards. For the record,
the problem isn't Unicode, but lack of Unicode support on JAWS. For
low vision audiences, Unicode does provide significant accessibility
advantages over, for example, images because text can be zoomed and
not pixellate.

For JAWS, it should be possible to add .sbl files which match things
like Unicode 2126 to an actual Unicode name like "Ohm".

http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/blogs/gotunicode/2008/09/getting-jaws-61-to-recognize-e.html
http://blog.carrolltech.org/archives/23

Another thing to be careful of is to NOT use the Microsoft Word Insert
palette. That often inserts non-Unicode material.

Hope this helps

Elizabeth


> 1. Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF (Bevi Chagnon | PubCom)
>
> From: "Bevi Chagnon | PubCom" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> Date: September 7, 2009 11:37:42 AM EDT
> To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> Subject: [WebAIM] Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
> Reply-To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = , WebAIM Discussion List < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> >
>
>
> I'm trying to find what the best solution is for inserting upper-level
> glyphs into InDesign documents which are later exported as 508-
> accessible
> PDFs. These glyphs are often symbols, such as bullets or scientific
> characters, but can also include foreign language characters.
>
> If I insert upper-level glyphs (higher than 255 from an OpenType or
> Unicode
> font's extended character set) into an InDesign layout, the PDF
> doesn't pass
> Acrobat's accessibility checker. Plus, when the glyphs are read by
> Acrobat's
> Read Aloud utility, they're read as "blank" or "dot dot dot" or
> absolutely
> nothing thereby ignoring the glyph.
>
> My client's JAWs reader also isn't reading them correctly (I don't
> know
> which version of JAWS my client is using).
>
> Glyph examples:
>
>> From Myriad Pro, the Ohm sign (towards the end of the list) CID 390,
> Unicode 2126
>
> Or MS Arial Unicode, the Black Knight chess character, Unicode 265E
>
>> From Wingdings, the "checkmark in box" character, 0xFE (this is not
>> a check
> box field in a form: instead it's a symbol of a checked box you'd
> use in a
> to-do list).
>
> What's the best way to handle these symbol glyphs?
>
> FYI, I can create character-level tags in InDesign (such as
> <emphasis> and
> <strong>) but they are not retained when a PDF is exported from
> InDesign.
>
> TIA,
> --Bevi Chagnon
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> . . .
> Bevi Chagnon | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | www.PubCom.com
> Government and non-profit publishing specialists for print, web,
> marketing,
> Acrobat, & 508
> PublishingDC Group Co-Moderator |
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishingDC
> Bevi blogs on Facebook |
> www.facebook.com/pages/Takoma-Park-MD/PubCom/139231069223
> And she tweets on Twitter | www.twitter.com/pubcom
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> . .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

From: Bevi Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Tue, Sep 08 2009 8:20AM
Subject: Re: Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
← Previous message | Next message →

Elizabeth wrote:
> Welcome to my favorite black hole in the standards. For the record,
> the problem isn't Unicode, but lack of Unicode support on JAWS.

Thanks, Elizabeth. It's nice to know that I'm not crazy...well, at least not
on THIS issue!

FYI, Acrobat's read aloud feature doesn't read the characters either, not
just JAWS.

We're inserting the characters from InDesign's glyph panel, which lists them
by Unicode number, so I'm assuming that they are being inserted correctly
into the source InDesign document before being exported to PDF. Well, I hope
that's what is going on behind the scenes because InDesign doesn't give us
any other way to insert extended characters.

Since JAWS isn't reading the Unicode characters, do you have any suggested
workaround for those of us who must create documents with these extended
characters?

I'm stumped as to how to make these little dudes accessible.

--Bevi

From: Jared Smith
Date: Tue, Sep 08 2009 8:35AM
Subject: Re: Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
← Previous message | Next message →

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:17 AM, Bevi Chagnon | PubCom< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Since JAWS isn't reading the Unicode characters, do you have any suggested
> workaround for those of us who must create documents with these extended
> characters?

I think the only way to have them read is to provide the character
name or text into the tags of the document. In Acrobat Pro, select the
tag for that character (you might need to go through the process of
creating a new tag if that character is included in a tag that
contains the surrounding text), then select Properties... Tag... and
then enter Alternative Text into the appropriate box.

Jared Smith
WebAIM

From: Karlen Communications
Date: Tue, Sep 08 2009 8:50AM
Subject: Re: Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
← Previous message | Next message →

Wouldn't you want to use the Actual Text attribute since you want the
character to read as part of text and not as a standalone graphic?

Cheers, Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 10:31 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:17 AM, Bevi Chagnon | PubCom< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Since JAWS isn't reading the Unicode characters, do you have any suggested
> workaround for those of us who must create documents with these extended
> characters?

I think the only way to have them read is to provide the character
name or text into the tags of the document. In Acrobat Pro, select the
tag for that character (you might need to go through the process of
creating a new tag if that character is included in a tag that
contains the surrounding text), then select Properties... Tag... and
then enter Alternative Text into the appropriate box.

Jared Smith
WebAIM

From: Bevi Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Tue, Sep 08 2009 1:00PM
Subject: Re: Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
← Previous message | Next message →

Summary (almost there):

Based on Jared and Karen's comments, and combined with an Adobe reference to
tagging abbreviations
http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/acrobat/pdf/A9-pdf-access-repair
-workflow.pdf, I think I have a workable solution for InDesign desktop
publishers who must export 508-accessible PDFs from their layouts.

Can I ask a favor? I have a test PDF uploaded to my website that has several
samples of upper-level Unicode characters in different usage scenarios. I
tried to replicate what I find my government publishers doing in their
InDesign layouts.

My goal is to find a way to let the designers create what they need to have
in the visual design and give 508-users a way to read the Unicode
characters.

Would a few screen reader users/list members take a quick look at the PDF
and let me know if it works? I'll post an online tutorial for the list when
I have the details worked out.

It's short.
It's here:
http://pubcom.com/newsletter/pdf-samples/3_Unicode-Test-2_corrected.pdf

Thanks in advance,
--Bevi Chagnon

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . .
Bevi Chagnon | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | www.PubCom.com
Government and non-profit publishing specialists for print, web, marketing,
Acrobat, & 508
PublishingDC Group Co-Moderator |
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishingDC
Bevi blogs on Facebook |
www.facebook.com/pages/Takoma-Park-MD/PubCom/139231069223
And she tweets on Twitter | www.twitter.com/pubcom
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Karlen
Communications
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 10:49 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF

Wouldn't you want to use the Actual Text attribute since you want the
character to read as part of text and not as a standalone graphic?

Cheers, Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 10:31 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:17 AM, Bevi Chagnon | PubCom< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Since JAWS isn't reading the Unicode characters, do you have any suggested
> workaround for those of us who must create documents with these extended
> characters?

I think the only way to have them read is to provide the character
name or text into the tags of the document. In Acrobat Pro, select the
tag for that character (you might need to go through the process of
creating a new tag if that character is included in a tag that
contains the surrounding text), then select Properties... Tag... and
then enter Alternative Text into the appropriate box.

Jared Smith
WebAIM

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Tue, Sep 08 2009 3:00PM
Subject: Re: Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
← Previous message | Next message →

ejp10 wrote:

> Welcome to my favorite black hole in the standards.

There's really no hole, regarding the accessibility of "special" characters.
It's just unstandardized. (There are really no _standards_ on accessibility,
unlike on character code, and the various "recommendations" and "guidelines"
are mostly very silent about "special" character issues.)

> For the record,
> the problem isn't Unicode, but lack of Unicode support on JAWS.

It's far more than that. Please remember that the vast majority of people
are not using JAWS and still have accessibility problems of different kinds.

The four basic accessibility issues with any "special" character (a very
relative concept of course - to me, "ä" is not special at all - it is a very
common letter -, to you it might be) are:
1) the user does not see or otherwise perceive the character at all (e.g.,
due to font problems)
2) the user sees a wrong character (or hears a wrong name etc.)
3) the user does not understand the character
4) the user misunderstands the character.

For the great majority of characters and people, item 3 is the real problem.

> For
> low vision audiences, Unicode does provide significant accessibility
> advantages over, for example, images because text can be zoomed and
> not pixellate.

Read "use of text characters" for "Unicode".

> For JAWS, it should be possible to add .sbl files which match things
> like Unicode 2126 to an actual Unicode name like "Ohm".

The actual Unicode name is OHM SIGN, and Unicode names are, in general,
identifiers assigned to characters. They are not supposed to be generally
useful names, and some of them are outright misleading, wrong, or absurd
(there's even a Unicode Consortium document on this) - and they will never
be changed. Moreover, though most of them are at least somewhat
understandable when used as a name, this really applies to English language
only.

The correct reading of the OHM SIGN in context depends on the context and on
the language. You cannot really guess how it should be read in Finnish, for
example... and it should almost never be read as something like "Ohm sign"
(name of the character) but rather as "Ohms", "Ohm", "ohmia" etc. (name of
unit in sentence context).

> Another thing to be careful of is to NOT use the Microsoft Word Insert
> palette. That often inserts non-Unicode material.

I'd say "sometimes" rather than "often". If you don't use Wingdings or other
fancy fonts and don't insert special controls (like line break controls),
you normally get a real Unicode character.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

From: Priti Rohra
Date: Wed, Sep 09 2009 7:15AM
Subject: Re: Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
← Previous message | No next message

Hello Bevi,

Great, JAWS 8 with Adobe Reader 9 reads them fine!!

Following are some of the examples as were read by JAWS:
1. Symbol: checkmark in checkbox
Toothbrush

2. The game ended by checkmate, when Symbol: Black knight chess piece
overtook Symbol: White queen chess piece

3. Continued on page Symbol: Numeral 2 in a decorative black circle

4. Step
Symbol: Numeral 2 in a decorative circle
Open the document.


My only concern is that JAWS treats it as a separate element and thus it
reads it on a separate line while reading the content one line at a time.
(As can be analyzed from the above examples) However, no issues when read
continuously.

Hope we can cut down on the language to minimize the listening for screen
reader users!

Hope this helps...

Thanks & Regards,
Priti Rohra
Accessibility Tester
Net Systems Informatics (India) Pvt. Ltd.
Web: www.n-syst.com|www.barrierbreak.com
blog: www.barrierbreak.com/blog

Please don't print this email unless you really need to. This will preserve
trees on our planet.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bevi Chagnon | PubCom" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 12:30 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF


> Summary (almost there):
>
> Based on Jared and Karen's comments, and combined with an Adobe reference
> to
> tagging abbreviations
> http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/acrobat/pdf/A9-pdf-access-repair
> -workflow.pdf, I think I have a workable solution for InDesign desktop
> publishers who must export 508-accessible PDFs from their layouts.
>
> Can I ask a favor? I have a test PDF uploaded to my website that has
> several
> samples of upper-level Unicode characters in different usage scenarios. I
> tried to replicate what I find my government publishers doing in their
> InDesign layouts.
>
> My goal is to find a way to let the designers create what they need to
> have
> in the visual design and give 508-users a way to read the Unicode
> characters.
>
> Would a few screen reader users/list members take a quick look at the PDF
> and let me know if it works? I'll post an online tutorial for the list
> when
> I have the details worked out.
>
> It's short.
> It's here:
> http://pubcom.com/newsletter/pdf-samples/3_Unicode-Test-2_corrected.pdf
>
> Thanks in advance,
> --Bevi Chagnon
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> .
> . . .
> Bevi Chagnon | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | www.PubCom.com
> Government and non-profit publishing specialists for print, web,
> marketing,
> Acrobat, & 508
> PublishingDC Group Co-Moderator |
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishingDC
> Bevi blogs on Facebook |
> www.facebook.com/pages/Takoma-Park-MD/PubCom/139231069223
> And she tweets on Twitter | www.twitter.com/pubcom
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> .
> . .
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Karlen
> Communications
> Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 10:49 AM
> To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
>
> Wouldn't you want to use the Actual Text attribute since you want the
> character to read as part of text and not as a standalone graphic?
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 10:31 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF
>
> On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 8:17 AM, Bevi Chagnon | PubCom< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> wrote:
>
>> Since JAWS isn't reading the Unicode characters, do you have any
>> suggested
>> workaround for those of us who must create documents with these extended
>> characters?
>
> I think the only way to have them read is to provide the character
> name or text into the tags of the document. In Acrobat Pro, select the
> tag for that character (you might need to go through the process of
> creating a new tag if that character is included in a tag that
> contains the surrounding text), then select Properties... Tag... and
> then enter Alternative Text into the appropriate box.
>
> Jared Smith
> WebAIM
>