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From: Zack Davis
Date: Mon, Dec 04 2017 1:21AM
Subject: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF
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Hey everyone,

I'm looking for something that's a rather simplistic view of a complex
process. What I'm curious about is what everyone considers to be the
average time it takes them to make a single page document (Word, PDF, HTML)
that is inaccessible and output it as an accessible PDF.

If you have an exact number that's awesome! If you only have a rough
estimate that's cool too! To make it a little easier, if you were given
1,000 pages of varying content with varying degrees of remediation
complexity. What would your estimate be to complete a single random page
from that stack of 1,000?

The purpose of this question is partially curiosity but also is that I'm
wanting to look at ways to possibly scale document remediation in a way
that reduces costs to clients while also maintaining a high standard that
doesn't result in non-conforming documents. While I know how long I would
estimate, that's only a single measurement so I'm hoping to get more
estimated averages to get a larger perspective.

Zack Davis
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Mon, Dec 04 2017 4:51AM
Subject: Re: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF
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>
> what everyone considers to be the average time it takes them to make a
> single page document (Word, PDF, HTML)
> that is inaccessible and output it as an accessible PDF.
>

I'm afraid the scale of different is logarithmic different for simple and
complex cases, so there is not realistic answer for this.

For example, if you have a simple Word document with a couple of (properly
marked up in Word) headings, it is hardly any time.

An identical looking page that was an image of the same text, that needs to
be OCRed and structured by hand would take a lot of time.

If there are more complex structures (tables, quotes etc) the time goes up
again. If there are images that need alts, or video content, the time goes
up again.

For a 100 page document from a good Word source doc, you might spend 5
minutes. An identical looking doc from an un-structured indesign source
might take 5 days. It is that much difference, so any 'average' would be
wildly different depending on what the sources were.

If you are working with a PDF doc then the difference is mainly that you
can't work on the source, so it had better be the final version as any
changes from the source will undo your work.

I haven't really tackled HTML to PDF as generally if you have an accessible
HTML version, you don't also need an accessible PDF version.

I hope that helps in some way, but sorry there isn't a nice answer!

-Alastair

From: R.U. Steinberg
Date: Mon, Dec 04 2017 6:57AM
Subject: Re: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF
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A one page PDF with form fields takes me much longer to remediate than a 10
page straight text PDF. I could spend 8 hours on the form vs. less than an
hour on straight text. If the PDF has color that fails contrast, that can
be fixed in Acrobat Pro, but that is also a time factor. Complex tables are
also a pain. I know that doesn't answer your question, but I suggest you do
an inventory of sorts on what types of PDFs you have (forms, text only,
with or without color, with or without images, with or without tables, etc.)



On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 5:51 AM Alastair Campbell < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> >
> > what everyone considers to be the average time it takes them to make a
> > single page document (Word, PDF, HTML)
> > that is inaccessible and output it as an accessible PDF.
> >
>
> I'm afraid the scale of different is logarithmic different for simple and
> complex cases, so there is not realistic answer for this.
>
> For example, if you have a simple Word document with a couple of (properly
> marked up in Word) headings, it is hardly any time.
>
> An identical looking page that was an image of the same text, that needs to
> be OCRed and structured by hand would take a lot of time.
>
> If there are more complex structures (tables, quotes etc) the time goes up
> again. If there are images that need alts, or video content, the time goes
> up again.
>
> For a 100 page document from a good Word source doc, you might spend 5
> minutes. An identical looking doc from an un-structured indesign source
> might take 5 days. It is that much difference, so any 'average' would be
> wildly different depending on what the sources were.
>
> If you are working with a PDF doc then the difference is mainly that you
> can't work on the source, so it had better be the final version as any
> changes from the source will undo your work.
>
> I haven't really tackled HTML to PDF as generally if you have an accessible
> HTML version, you don't also need an accessible PDF version.
>
> I hope that helps in some way, but sorry there isn't a nice answer!
>
> -Alastair
> > > > >

From: Josh Schroder
Date: Mon, Dec 04 2017 8:39AM
Subject: Re: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF
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As others have said, it's a highly variable process, but I've found that the toughest PDFs that I usually come across (containing fillable forms, no structure, layout tables, no alt-text, etc.) typically take somewhere around 1 hour per page, give or take.

For pure-text documents, I can probably do somewhere around 5 minutes per page, sometimes less.

I'm also a big proponent of CommonLook PDF. It is expensive, but it really speeds things up and reduces the frustration of dealing with the inefficient workflows in Acrobat. If you do this work often, and you consider the cost of your labor per hour, it can potentially be a really good value.

Josh Schroder
Web Administrator II
Office of Strategic Communications
Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation
(512) 936-8937

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Mon, Dec 04 2017 9:36AM
Subject: Re: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF
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I agree with Alastair that there is no good answer to the question of an
average time to remediate a PDF.

Estimating the time it will take to remediate something is a bit of a
micro-skill in itself. I have a set of criteria that I look at to make
estimates that includes: file format (pdf, docx, pptx? Do you have the
source file), type of document (standard text? large graphical poster?
filled with tables and charts?), complexity (many embedded lists?
numbered headings? uses complex tables? lots of non-decorative images?),
and length. One special case: documents that require OCR I consider
individually unique and almost impossible to estimate without starting
to actually work on them.

In addition to those criteria, the amount of time required will also
depend on what you mean by "accessible". Everyone on this list I am sure
is always trying to make perfect documents that meet or exceed all
accessibility requirements everywhere. But there are degrees of
perfection, in my opinion. Even within my own work, documents that I
remediated just a year or two ago, and that passed the PAC 2 checker
cleanly, I would now do additional work on were they to come across my
desk again. On the other hand, I would also work more quickly than I did
a year or two ago, so maybe that all comes out in the wash in terms of
time estimates.

On 2017-12-04 10:39 AM, Josh Schroder wrote:
> For pure-text documents, I can probably do somewhere around 5 minutes per page, sometimes less.

Having stated all those caveats and exceptions above, and for the
purposes of useful discussion, I would say that it takes an average of
somewhere between 3 and 12 minutes a page for me to remediate 90% of the
standard documents I work on.

On 2017-12-04 10:39 AM, Josh Schroder wrote:
> I'm also a big proponent of CommonLook PDF. It is expensive, but it really speeds things up and reduces the frustration of dealing with the inefficient workflows in Acrobat. If you do this work often, and you consider the cost of your labor per hour, it can potentially be a really good value.

Regarding remediation software, I would encourage folks to look at
AxesPDF instead of CommonLook PDF, at least until CommonLook provides
some kind of sane pricing structure for third-party licences to folks
who want to get paid to remediate PDFs for others. AxesPDF is  available
at a fraction of the cost and performs almost all the most important
time-saving functions as CommonLook's software does. In terms of
cost-per-hour, it would literally be cheaper for me to pay someone else
to remediate files for me than it would be for me to purchase a license
from CommonLook that lets me remediate files for you.

Phil.


On 2017-12-04 10:39 AM, Josh Schroder wrote:
> For pure-text documents, I can probably do somewhere around 5 minutes per page, sometimes less.
>
> I'm also a big proponent of CommonLook PDF. It is expensive, but it really speeds things up and reduces the frustration of dealing with the inefficient workflows in Acrobat. If you do this work often, and you consider the cost of your labor per hour, it can potentially be a really good value.
>
> Josh Schroder
> Web Administrator II
> Office of Strategic Communications
> Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation
> (512) 936-8937
>
>

From: Duff Johnson
Date: Mon, Dec 04 2017 11:12AM
Subject: Re: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF
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In my old company, Document Solutions, Inc., we started tagging PDF files for accessibility back in 2001. I believe we were the first service bureau in the world to do this work. Within a couple of years we'd evolved a systematic means of assessing PDF files that never led us astray… or I should say, when it did so it was never by much. :-)

Essentially, you have to:

1. Build the estimating process into your overall time-estimate.

2. Auto-tag untagged files.

3. Compare auto-tagged input and output to identify z-order errors, if any.

4. Assess each document (or a representative sample of documents) on a page-by-page basis reviewing the nature of the content and determining the quality of whatever tagging you are starting with.

For documents without form-fields, we used a 1-20 rating scale. "1" more-or-less equalled about 5 seconds / page; enough for an expert to verify that the structure represents the page-content "out of the egg". "20" meant the page was fiendishly difficult and would likely require 1+ hour of work. We found that experienced operators could perform the necessary scoring in around 5-10 seconds per page, depending on the overall nature of the content. Office documents are a lot faster to assess than magazine pages, for obvious reasons.

This may sound laborious, but it actually makes life SO much easier when you really know what you've got, instead of "finding out". That happens anyway, to some extent, of course.

5. Add 1-2 minutes / document for setup and overhead. This can really be a bummer when the documents are very short and/or very simple (i.e., the auto-tagging results are pretty good), but it's very important not to shortchange the overhead!

Documents WITH form-fields have to be assessed in a far more rigorous way, period. There are field combinations (checkboxes) to check, JavaScripts to assess, invisible fields to consider, etc., etc… It ain't just structure-element order and semantics!

Duff.

PS: In my capacity as Executive Director of the non-profit PDF Association...

<one-time shameless plug>

Join myself and many other PDF experts at PDF Day DC on January 29, 2018. Among others, we have are six sessions on managing for Section 508 conformance and accessible PDF. Learn more:

https://www.pdfa.org/event/pdf-day-washington-dc/.

</one-time shameless plug>




> On Dec 4, 2017, at 11:36, Philip Kiff < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> I agree with Alastair that there is no good answer to the question of an average time to remediate a PDF.
>
> Estimating the time it will take to remediate something is a bit of a micro-skill in itself. I have a set of criteria that I look at to make estimates that includes: file format (pdf, docx, pptx? Do you have the source file), type of document (standard text? large graphical poster? filled with tables and charts?), complexity (many embedded lists? numbered headings? uses complex tables? lots of non-decorative images?), and length. One special case: documents that require OCR I consider individually unique and almost impossible to estimate without starting to actually work on them.
>
> In addition to those criteria, the amount of time required will also depend on what you mean by "accessible". Everyone on this list I am sure is always trying to make perfect documents that meet or exceed all accessibility requirements everywhere. But there are degrees of perfection, in my opinion. Even within my own work, documents that I remediated just a year or two ago, and that passed the PAC 2 checker cleanly, I would now do additional work on were they to come across my desk again. On the other hand, I would also work more quickly than I did a year or two ago, so maybe that all comes out in the wash in terms of time estimates.
>
> On 2017-12-04 10:39 AM, Josh Schroder wrote:
>> For pure-text documents, I can probably do somewhere around 5 minutes per page, sometimes less.
>
> Having stated all those caveats and exceptions above, and for the purposes of useful discussion, I would say that it takes an average of somewhere between 3 and 12 minutes a page for me to remediate 90% of the standard documents I work on.
>
> On 2017-12-04 10:39 AM, Josh Schroder wrote:
>> I'm also a big proponent of CommonLook PDF. It is expensive, but it really speeds things up and reduces the frustration of dealing with the inefficient workflows in Acrobat. If you do this work often, and you consider the cost of your labor per hour, it can potentially be a really good value.
>
> Regarding remediation software, I would encourage folks to look at AxesPDF instead of CommonLook PDF, at least until CommonLook provides some kind of sane pricing structure for third-party licences to folks who want to get paid to remediate PDFs for others. AxesPDF is available at a fraction of the cost and performs almost all the most important time-saving functions as CommonLook's software does. In terms of cost-per-hour, it would literally be cheaper for me to pay someone else to remediate files for me than it would be for me to purchase a license from CommonLook that lets me remediate files for you.
>
> Phil.
>
>
> On 2017-12-04 10:39 AM, Josh Schroder wrote:
>> For pure-text documents, I can probably do somewhere around 5 minutes per page, sometimes less.
>>
>> I'm also a big proponent of CommonLook PDF. It is expensive, but it really speeds things up and reduces the frustration of dealing with the inefficient workflows in Acrobat. If you do this work often, and you consider the cost of your labor per hour, it can potentially be a really good value.
>>
>> Josh Schroder
>> Web Administrator II
>> Office of Strategic Communications
>> Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation
>> (512) 936-8937
>>
>>

From: Concilio, Joan
Date: Mon, Dec 04 2017 12:12PM
Subject: Re: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF
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I'm going to play devil's advocate here and ask if there is a specific business reason why the final accessible format needs to be a PDF. It's been our experience (and we've dealt with something like 3,000 documents in the past year alone) that most of the time, the best solution for both UX and accessibility has been "something else" - accessible webform, content presented properly on a page, something (gasp) not presented online at all because it wasn't appropriate for the broad audience, etc. Our college has gone from the aforementioned 3,000 PDF documents to less than 10 since fall 2016.

That takes more time up front, but now we are at a place where I can convert a single page of almost any type of content, including complex tables and images, in about a half-hour or less, using systems we've developed... AND you can read them easily on mobile too! As others have mentioned, having the real original document is a big piece of that - if we're dealing with something that has been, like, scanned and OCR'd, all bets are off on time.

Joan Concilio, web content and design specialist for research
Penn State College of Medicine
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | 717-531-5674

From: Duff Johnson
Date: Mon, Dec 04 2017 12:59PM
Subject: Re: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF
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Hi Joan,

It's certainly the case that PDF is commonly mis-used. That said, I would advise against getting rid of all PDFs as a point of principle. PDF is fundamentally useful when…

- You need a document of record
- You need a deliverable document (i.e., one that does not depend on a connection, remote server, etc.
- You need a fixed-format (unchanging appearance) document irrespective of the software used to view it
- You need a document with inherent digital signature and/or encryption facilities
- You need a document that delivers excellent results when printed, or to meet specific high-end printing criteria
- You need a document that includes the ability to include other content (3D data, videos, arbitrary attachments) in the same deliverable as the file itself

There are other use-cases, but these are among the biggest.

Duff.


> On Dec 4, 2017, at 14:12, Concilio, Joan < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> I'm going to play devil's advocate here and ask if there is a specific business reason why the final accessible format needs to be a PDF. It's been our experience (and we've dealt with something like 3,000 documents in the past year alone) that most of the time, the best solution for both UX and accessibility has been "something else" - accessible webform, content presented properly on a page, something (gasp) not presented online at all because it wasn't appropriate for the broad audience, etc. Our college has gone from the aforementioned 3,000 PDF documents to less than 10 since fall 2016.
>
> That takes more time up front, but now we are at a place where I can convert a single page of almost any type of content, including complex tables and images, in about a half-hour or less, using systems we've developed... AND you can read them easily on mobile too! As others have mentioned, having the real original document is a big piece of that - if we're dealing with something that has been, like, scanned and OCR'd, all bets are off on time.
>
> Joan Concilio, web content and design specialist for research
> Penn State College of Medicine
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | 717-531-5674
>
>
>
>
>

From: Zack Davis
Date: Tue, Dec 05 2017 4:50PM
Subject: Re: Average Time to Create an Accessible PDF
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Thank You, everyone, for your responses! I know my question was fairly
ambiguous but your responses were helpful!

I also agree with you Joan, it's best to make as many documents as possible
available in webpages. I've suggested the same to all my clients.
Unfortunately, some of them are unable to move completely away from PDF for
a large number of documents as doing so would require them to meet HIPAA as
well as other regulations, not to mention the reasons Duff mentioned and at
this point they're either unprepared or unwilling to do that. So, I can
reduce their total number of PDF's but in the end, they still end up
needing many documents to remain in the PDF format.

Zack Davis
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =