----- Original Message -----
>From: Audrey Gorman
She claims that many libraries are going to Adobe 5.0 but don't understand
that it's not completely accessible or that it makes some screen reading
software useless. She's concerned about the impact on students trying to
access periodicals and take notes for term papers as well as about people
like herself, a self-employed stock analyst.
She's mounted her own campaigns on chat rooms and discussion lists to alert
people who are blind and visually impaired.  She has also contacted Adobe,
and seems to feel that they aren't as concerned as they should be about the
accessibility issues and don't intend to fix the problems.

Hi, Audrey et. al. --

    It is probably true that most libraries don't totally understand the
possible consequences of going to Adobe 5.0, but there are other benefits to
upgrading that other people find useful.  I think this woman is confusing
usability for her own needs with accessibility for all users, and she should
be careful about what she is saying.
    Perhaps Adobe is not responding well to her because they are well-known
for their attempts at making Acrobat files accessible.  In fact, they have
added features into version 5.0 to improve accessibility even further.  For
more information about this, you can read one of their press releases online
at
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200106/20010621508.h
tml, but here is a short excerpt of one of their initiatives:

"The Make Accessible plug-in
(http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/88de.htm), available as a free
download for customers of Acrobat 5.0 for the Windows platform, enables
users to optimize existing Adobe PDF files for accessibility. The tool
automatically approximates a document's logical structure and creates a
tagged Adobe PDF file that can be interpreted more easily by screen reader
software."

    In addition to the above solutions, they have an online tool that will
convert any Acrobat PDF document to make it accessible to everyone.  I can't
get into the site right now, but it's located at http://access.adobe.com/
and it has been available for some time.
    So while Acrobat 5 may not be the best solution for this one individual,
it is not Adobe's fault that the information she needs is in their format.
Perhaps she should be talking to the folks who are putting information she
needs in PDF format before she goes off on Adobe.  I think they're trying to
do their part for the accessibility community, and I'd be careful about
telling the library community otherwise.

Jenny
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Jenny Levine                                          125 Tower Drive
Internet Development Specialist              Burr Ridge, IL 60527
Suburban Library System                       +1 (630) 734 5141
http://www.sls.lib.il.us/                            [log in to unmask]
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