Gross Slides

Bridging the gap: accessibility & PDF

Franck GROSS Business Developer Acrobat Solutions

Accessibility Drivers

Acrobat Accessibility Features

What Tags Do

Capturing paper

Forms

Authoring Tools

Techniques

Additional Resources

Government Mandates Around the World

Section 508 - USA

Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 – United Kingdom

Common Look and Feel (CLF) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - Canada

Manufacturer/ Industry Standards

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

Assistive Technology Improvements – JAWS, Window Eyes, HAL, Zoomtext, Kurzweil etc.

Adobe PDF 1.4, Macromedia Flash, Microsoft MSAA

Stakeholder Advocacy

ACB, AFB, NFB, NCD, RNIB etc…

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people in the way in which you provide services Discrimination can take place in two ways by treating a disabled person less favourably by failing to make “reasonable adjustments” so that disabled people can make use of a service The 2001 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) amended the DDA to include education

The Disability Rights Commission Code of Practice published February 2002 includes a definition of the term ‘service‘

http://www.drc-gb.org/uploaded_files/documents/2008_223_drc_cop_rights_of_Access.doc

A website that offers free information or a commercial product or service to the public is a ‘service’ as defined under the Act

e.g, an airline ticket booking service

Such websites must conform to web accessibility guidelines

e.g. W3C WCAG (World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)

This extends to content delivered by the website, including Flash, PDF, QuickTime etc.

In January 2006 the DRC and the BSI will publish ‘PAS 78: Guide to Good Practice in Commissioning Accessible Websites’

As yet no company or organisation has been sued in a UK court for having an inaccessible web site

In July 2003, RNIB pursued two such cases

In one case, county court proceedings were issued

Both cases were settled out of court “in the best interests of the blind and partially sighted people involved”

Accessibility of Public Web Sites – Access for People with Disabilities: Council Resolution 25 March 2002:

“Encourages Member States to implement specific and adequately- resourced measures to achieve the underlying objective of the eEurope 2002 Action Plan for accessibility of public web sites at all levels of government”

Applicable to central Government and local authorities

Providing applications software

… and delivering electronic content

… that can be used effectively by people with disabilities

Image © RNIB 2005

Adobe PDF is a standard for final- form documents on the Web

Over 150 worldwide government agencies have adopted Adobe PDF

Including thousands of PDF forms

Adobe PDF is the de facto standard for electronic documents in the publishing industry

Over 1.25BN Adobe Readers distributed

2M downloads per week

20 languages

Logo Title

Subtitle Column 1 Scanned image Table Data Column 2

Contains both content and structure

Bookmarks with Hyperlinks

Contains navigational aids

Scanned Text Computer Text

Contains real text, not just scanned text

“Document language is English” “Image of surface preparation equipment”

Correctly defined reading order

Contains extra information for the blind or visually disabled

Correctly defined reading order of document text and tables

Alternate text descriptions for images

A defined document language and meaningful form field descriptions

View and Print Accessible PDF documents and forms with the following Adobe products:

Adobe Reader® 7.0

Acrobat 7.0 Elements

Acrobat 7.0 Standard

Acrobat 7.0 Professional

Accessible installer

Detection of assistive technology

Such as screen readers / screen magnifiers

Wizard to set accessibility options

Automatic generation of accessibility information

On-the-fly, when necessary

Accessible website with user information

http://access.adobe.com

Alternate reading orders

Menu: Edit Æ Preferences Æ Reading

Read Aloud

Menu: View Æ Read Out Loud

Key: Control + Shift + V (Page)

Key: Control + Shift + B (Entire Doc.)

Auto-Scroll

Menu: View Æ Automatically Scroll

Key: Control + Shift + H

High contrast viewing

Menu: Edit Æ Preferences Æ Accessibility

Key: Control + K Image © RNIB 2005

Acrobat 8.0 Standard enables the easy creation, exchange, review and approval of accessible PDFs

It includes all of the features available with Adobe Reader 8.0 plus:

Fast and easy tagging of existing PDF documents

Reduce tagged PDF file size for faster downloads

Add security while retaining accessibility

Add text to scanned pages

Export correctly-ordered text from PDF files to Word and XML

Acrobat 8.0 Professional includes all the features available with Reader, and Acrobat 8.0 Standard

Includes expert tools to optimise accessibility for PDF documents

Review and modify the reflow/ reading order of objects on a page

Check and touch up documents for accessibility e.g. adding alternate text

Create accessible PDF forms

Using dedicated Adobe LiveCycle Designer (Windows only)

Franck Gross Accessiweb 2006 Cité des sciences et de l’industrie

“Document language is English” PDF maintains the visual integrity of a document

But the logical document structure may not follow the drawing order of page objects

A truly accessible PDF must unambiguously define document structure “Image of surface This is accomplished by preparation “tagging” page elements equipment” Purely visual elements must carry an alternate text description

Correctly defined reading order

Enable document reflow (low vision, limited mobility)

Provide a “hook” on which to hang alternative text descriptions

Make it possible to modify reading order without changing the document’s appearance

Ensure the correct interpretation of tables and interactive features such as form fields, bookmarks, hypertext links, web URLs etc.

Scanned page? Form?

Apply OCR (Optical Character Existing forms can be tagged Recognition) Where no form fields exist, use Treat as legacy PDF form creation methods in Acrobat 7.0 Professional

Legacy PDF? Original document?

Add Tags Where possible, define document structure in authoring application Add alternate descriptions for graphics and images Otherwise, convert and treat as legacy PDF Check text Reading Order

ASSIGNING IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS (IDs): Unique IDs are required for the following report elements: Stacks, Control Devices and Processes. For processes, that means a process ID number may be used only once on all General Process and Evaporative Process Forms.

Scanned text Computer text

Turns pictures of text to actual text

Necessary so that screen reader has something to read

Built in OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Acrobat menu: Document> Recognize text using OCR

Create new PDF forms:

Forms tool in Acrobat 8.0 Professional

Adobe LiveCycle Designer (available in Acrobat 8.0 Professional, Windows only)

Legacy PDF forms can be made accessible

Adobe PDF Forms Access 1.0

Advanced Æ Accessibilty Æ Quick Check (Shift-Ctrl-6)

Works in Adobe Reader as well as Acrobat

Result shows document is not structured

Advanced Æ Accessibility Æ Add Tags to Document

Results report contains hints and tips on further steps needed

Advanced Æ Accessibility Æ TouchUp Reading Order (or TouchUp toolbar)

Text read order can be changed using the Order panel

Use the TouchUp Object tool to add alternate text descriptions to images and graphics Screen Reader reads out the description when it encounters the picture

The best source for creating accessible PDFs

Document structure can often be preserved, avoiding the need for tagging in Acrobat

MS Office documents can be converted using PDF Maker add-in

PDF Maker generates accessibility information in the PDF

Adobe InDesign CS2

Author graphically rich layouts, turn them into tagged PDF or accessible HTML

Adobe FrameMaker 7.0

Author long, structured documents, turn them into tagged PDF or accessible HTML

Adobe PageMaker 7.0

Author business publications, turn them into tagged PDF, HTML

With Acrobat’s PDF Maker for Microsoft Office

Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint

Microsoft Visio, Project

The better the source document structure, the better the PDF

In Word, use styles consistently to ensure headings, bullets etc. are identified correctly

Styles can also generate bookmarks (navigation controls) automatically when using PDF Maker

You can also add alternative text to images and graphics in Word itself, and will be carried over to the PDF:

1. Right-click the photo of the earth to open the shortcut menu.

2. On the shortcut menu, click format picture.

3. In the format picture dialog box, click the web tab.

4. In the alternative text box, type photo of the earth as seen from

space. Then click OK.

Structure panel in InDesign allows XML tagging of all page elements

Text

Figures

Tables

Publish from and to XML

Map styles to XML tags and vice versa

Create accessible PDF

Complete with alt text, table structures etc.

Adobe GoLive CS2

Author HTML and manage Web sites, use SSB Technology to check for accessibility

Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0

Turn high volumes of scanned pages into tagged PDF

Adobe Acrobat Capture 3.0 Agent Pack with PDF Forms Access

Use the Tag Adobe PDF Agent to automatically tag volumes of legacy PDF files

Document security can defeat PDF accessibility by preventing a screen reader having access to the text

Avoid this situation by allowing Content Extraction for Accessibility when defining document security

This permits “trusted” screen readers to access the content for accessibility purposes only

http://access.adobe.com (note: no www)

Franck GROSS Business Developper Acrobat +33 1 56 54 99 09 [email protected]

PDF Zone – www.pdfzone.com

Planet PDF – www.planetpdf.com