RTF is old and, although proprietary to Microsoft, not likely to change
since MS doesn't really use it for much any more.  Not enough to make any
substantial changes anyhow.  RTF is importable and exportable by every word
processor I know and is even exportable by Acrobat 5.1.  [I personally use
the RTF export as my favorite way to make PDF files most accessible. It's
far better formatted than Acrobat's miserable text export.] Details of the
exported files can differ dramatically from one exporting program to
another, but to my knowledge, all are "accessible".

RTF can display a far wider character set than the 95 printable ASCII
characters, so if one encounters bullets, foreign currency indicators,
Greek letters, math and science characters, etc, the accessibility depends
on what program is being used to read them.  Both Jaws and Window-Eyes
permit one to create a dictionary to pronounce any of these symbols,
although this functionality doesn't work as well as I would like.  Jaws for
example seems to read these strange symbols if one steps through them but
not if one is reading by word, line, etc.  As far as I know, it is not
possible to define braille equivalents for arbitrary characters from
various font sets for either Jaws or Window-Eyes.  If I'm wrong, I'd love
to know.  I am told that the Braille Note does a pretty good job of
displaying many RTF characters including Greek letters, but I'm fuzzy on
just how it's done.

Hope this is helpful.

John





At 11:38 PM 2/28/2003 -0500, Randy Horwitz wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>Saw this question on another list. I thought that RTF would be fine. Seems
>like it is just the way the Word Processor of choice renders it... Or, at
>least, that is what I'd think. I've dealt with raw RTF, and it was certainly
>no big deal back in 96, but, has it changed? Any comments?
>
>Thanks,
>Randy
>
>"I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out
>always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but
>don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed
>time. "
>
>John J. Chapman
>Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of Hobart College, 1900
>----- Original Message -----
>From: kestrell <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 7:15 AM
>Subject: [Nabs] how accessible is rtf?
>
>
> > It seems half the time someone sends me an rtf file, it appears blank
> > according to Jaws. Has anyone else had problems with the rtf format? Are
> > there different versions, such as there are for pdf? The rtf files which
>my
> > school sends me have consisistently been inaccessible, despite the DSS
> > office insisting it is a perfectly accessible format. Argh.
> >
> > kestrell
> >
> >
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John Gardner
Professor and Director, Science Access Project
Department of Physics
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-6507
tel: (541) 737 3278
FAX: (541) 737 1683
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://dots.physics.orst.edu