Hi Kathy and Richard and other interested listers.

In Maine state government we have a web accessibility policy that
requires that an accessible alternative - either ASCII text or HTML text -
be
posted along with each posting in PDF format.

Personally, I believe it's a massive waste of resources to spend time trying
to make PDF files accessible - both on the part of the document's author as
well as on the collective part of all the individuals who use screen readers
who must first locate the correct version of Acrobat Reader, download it,
install it, and learn how to operate it.  After all that effort and the use
of valuable bandwidth and time to download the bloated PDF version of a
document that they want to access, screen reader users often cannot access
the document anyway.
And there is no "access" version of Acrobat Reader for Macintosh computers
or for several other operating systems.

I think authors and/or webmasters would better serve their readers if they
spent the time and energy they would otherwise use learning how to make
"accessible" PDF and instead learned how to make accessible HTML.  It is,
after
all, the web page authoring language and it works well for that purpose.
PDF is a good tool for creating a hard copy that appears the same regardless
of what operating system you have on your computer, but forcing it to render
easily accessible contents to screen readers is a waste of everyone's time
and effort.  After all, it's the information that needs to be accessible,
not the PDF. Jon



-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Jones [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 3:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Creating accessible PDFs


The PDF file is more restrictive in terms of accessibility than HTML.  The
newer versions of Acrobat doesn't change that.  There is a perceived freedom
from Web standards when proprietary documents are attached to a web site.
HTML files should be accessible according to W3C, Priority One or Sec. 508,
depending on the state and the agency. When using PDF, you are dependent on
the version of Adobe Acrobat that created the file, the expertise of the PDF
author, and the type of material being inserted into the PDF file. The
structure of Adobe Acrobat and the Adobe marketing is completely against the
effort used to make some Acrobat files accessible.  Acrobat is still a
proprietary system.  If you use PDF based documents, you should also have,
on the same page, an HTML document.
You might want to look at the Adobe Acrobat web site.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/main.html  Acrobat Accessibility is in
the smallest type used on the page and id inserted between "Language
Versions" and "Licensing Programs."  This is much better than it used to be
when there was nothing on the Adobe pages about accessibility. They kept an
unpublished  web site for accessibility.  Now you can get, with some effort,
to information on the work necessary to make a PDF file accessible.
Accessibility is not a major selling point for Adobe Acrobat and they have
provided obtuse and constrained software tools that match their dedication
to accessibility.
It is doubling the effort of web masters to make a PDF file accessible.  It
is better to slam up a dirty PDF and add a link to an accessible HTML file.


-----Original Message-----
From: Kathleen Cahill [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 8:50 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Creating accessible PDFs


Hello everyone;
I'm wondering what some of you are telling your web developers regarding
PDFs these days.  We have a number of departments who put up course
information in PDF; however, the information in the PDF also contains
diagrams, charts and math notation.  Even if we recommended that these
documents were put up in HTML format, there would still be accessibility
issues around making the non-textual elements accessible.  Are any of you
recommending that PDFs be converted into accessible versions?  How well is
it working?  Are people able to follow the instructions from Adobe
regarding the creation of accessible PDFs?
Many thanks,
Kathy
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Kathy Cahill
MIT Adaptive Technology (ATIC) lab
77 Mass. Ave. 7-143
Cambridge MA 02139
(617) 253-5111
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