As a practicing low vision disabled librarian who can still get around using zoomtext - when I finally open a clear crisp pdf document I think I'm going to print it, frame it and hang it in a place of honor. All the advice I have ever seen including previous discussions on the list about the very limited success using adobe accessibility software have said use pdf if that's the only format the document is in. Personally, when given the choice between html and pdf, I always take html - I get a clean crisp image for zoomtext and I don't lose any keyboard command functionality if I want JAWs to read me the document instead.

Simon Healey
Librarian II
Access Technology Project
Free Library of Philadelphia

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Kathleen Cahill<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
  To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
  Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2004 4:29 PM
  Subject: PDF Answer and question about scanning


  Hi;

  I'll answer a question, then ask a question.  We encourage people not to use PDFs if there are other alternatives, such as text or HTML.  As Joe already mentioned, PDF files can be difficult with a screen reader and once you convert a nicely formatted file to PDF, you lose some of that formatting (especially with tables).  We do encourage people to use accessible PDFs and add tags to the PDF, but sometimes, they don't have access to the original document and aren't willing to go back and add structure to it.  

  Now I need to ask a question:  Does anyone have a listing of instructions or do's and don'ts for those doing scanning and editing?  We are scanning in a large number of paper documents for an incoming grad student and realize we need to develop guidelines for the departments that are providing the xeroxed copies of the articles (some are bad copies), the students who do scanning and OCR, and the people who will be editing the documents. If anyone has instructions or guidelines that they can share, I would greatly appreciate it.

  Thanks,
  Kathy



  ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
  Kathy Cahill
  MIT Adaptive Technology (ATIC) lab
  77 Mass. Ave. 7-143
  Cambridge MA 02139
  (617) 253-5111
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  http://web.mit.edu/atic/www/<http://web.mit.edu/atic/www/>