PDF/UA in a Nutshell – Accessible Documents with PDF
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PDF/UA in a Nutshell Accessible documents with PDF Olaf Drümmer and Bettina Chang ■ The ISO standard for universal accessibility ■ Laws and regulations ■ The history of PDF/UA ■ File format requirements ■ Compliant PDF programs ■ Assistive technology ■ PDF/UA creation tools ■ Validating PDF/UA compliance ■ What the experts say Contents PDF/UA: The ISO standard for universal accessibility 3 Assistive technology for in-depth testing 14 Compliant reader software 14 PDF/UA: The key facts 4 Laws requiring accessible IT services 4 Added value for PDF users 15 Introduction to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 4 Visual or motor impairments 15 Reading and writing difficulties 15 Important Laws and regulations 5 Easier reading and navigation on mobile devices 15 International 5 United States of America 5 The potential benefits of PDF/UA 16 Europe 5 Laws paving the way for PDF/UA 17 The history of PDF/UA 6 What the experts are saying 18 PDF/UA’s requirements 7 Klaus-Peter Wegge, Siemens AG 18 File format requirements 7 Markus Riesch, “Access for All” 18 Requirements for compliant PDF programs 8 Requirements for compliant assistive technology 8 Learn more about PDF/UA 19 PDF/UA Competence Center 19 Accessible PDF: Users and usage 9 PDF/UA seminars 19 PDF Association membership 19 PDF/UA: Creation tools 10 AIIM PDF/UA Committee 19 Table 1: PDF/UA creation tools 10 Validating PDF/UA compliance 12 Table 2: Validating PDF/UA compliance 13 PDF/UA in a Nutshell I Introduction PDF/UA: The ISO standard for universal accessibility Information plays a central role in soci- PDF/UA-1 is the first part of the ety today, and it is becoming more and PDF/UA standards family; the “UA” more common for that information to suffix stands for “Universal Accessibili- be offered in digital form alone. The re- ty” and refers to the standard’s central liable, user-friendly Portable Document requirement. It is the first complete defi- Format (PDF) has become the world’s nition of a set of requirements for uni- file type of choice for providing infor- versally-accessible PDF documents. mation as a digital document. PDF/UA is aimed primarily at de- Tags can be added to a PDF in order velopers of software for creating, read- to structure the content of a document. ing, editing and validating PDF, and at Tagged PDF: These tags are a critical requirement if suppliers of assistive technology. The Tags are standardised content any form of assistive technology (such standard itself is not intended as a field markers in a digital document. as screen readers, specialist mice, and manual for day-to-day use, but for PDF First available in Adobe Acro- speech recognition and text-to-speech creators looking to learn more. The PDF bat 5, tags can be used to cre- software) is to gain access to this con- Association and its members offer spe- ate a PDF file with a logical tent. To date, PDF documents have rare- cialist articles, webinars and training, document structure . Tags are a ly been tagged, and not all software can providing detailed information about critical requirement for access- make use of PDF tags. In practical terms, PDF/UA and explaining how to create ing the content in PDFs with this particularly reduces information‘s accessible PDF content. Implementing assistive technology. accessibility for people with disabilities the clearly-defined requirements of the who rely on assistive technology. PDF/UA standard in software products will allow users to easily create accessi- ble PDF documents without any special training, opening up effortless access to high quality content to as many people as possible. At the time of PDF/UA’s publication, of course, there were no programs avail- able which were fully compliant with the standard. Since then, however, a number The ISO (International Organization for Standard- of software developers including Adobe ization) is the largest organisation in the world for Systems, axaio software, callas software, developing and publishing international standards. NetCentric Technologies, NV Access, PDFlib, xyMedia, the Swiss National In order to ensure future access to Association of and for the Blind (SNAB), PDF documents for as many people and the Swiss foundation “Zugang für as possible, the ISO 14289-1 standard alle” (Access For All) have already an- (known as PDF/UA) was developed by nounced or even released products sup- specialists from around the world. It was porting the PDF/UA format. published by the ISO in July 2012 with More and more developers, govern- the official title “ISO 14289-1. Document ment authorities and other organisa- management applications – Electronic tions are expected to accept PDF/UA as document file format enhancement for an absolute requirement for universally accessibility – Part 1: Use of ISO 32000-1 accessible PDF documents from this (PDF/UA-1)”. point on. PDF/UA in a Nutshell 3 Introduction PDF/UA: The key facts What does “universal accessibility” from websites, this applies in particu- actually mean when it comes to PDFs? lar to PDF documents. Although such It is the idea that everyone should be laws do not always apply to the private equally able to independently access sector (or apply only in limited cases), and use the information contained more and more modern businesses are within a PDF document. This applies accepting their responsibility to pro- in particular to people with disabili- vide accessible versions of both their ties and those with other difficulties; websites and the PDF documents they in other words, those who particularly provide. depend on universally accessible infor- mation and documents. The PDF/UA Introduction to the Web Content standard allows these people the fol- Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 lowing key options: The requirements for PDF/UA are based on the principles of Version 2.0 ■ Making use of PDF documents with- of the W3C consortium’s Web Content out assistance from others Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), also published in identical form as an ISO ■ Reaching a specific goal easily, di- standard in October 2012 (ISO/IEC rectly, and within a reasonable time 40500). WCAG 2.0 guides the creation frame of accessible web content, focusing on the kinds of content and applications ■ Making the same-quality use of PDF usually provided on websites. documents as people without disa- Some WCAG 2.0 tips of a purely in- bilities. formative nature suggest how barriers to access can also be avoided in PDF The technical requirements for uni- documents, but a systematic explana- versally accessible PDF documents are tion or guide is not provided. PDF/UA, described clearly and in full in the new on the other hand, exclusively and ful- PDF/UA standard. They define, for -ex ly addresses the PDF format, bringing ample, how to create text, images, form the ideas behind WCAG 2.0 into the fields, lists and tables that can be used world of PDF and setting PDF-specific by people with disabilities. rules. As an ISO standard, PDF/UA does Laws requiring accessible IT services not offer concrete help with implemen- These requirements are increasingly tation, either for specific programs or important for businesses and public areas of application. This, however, is institutions, as current legislation re- covered by the PDF/UA Competence quires (and in some cases has regulat- Center founded by the PDF Associa- ed for many years) universal accessi- tion. The PDF/UA Competence Center bility in information technology. Laws is made up of leading international in the USA, Canada, Australia and the businesses and individual experts who European Union, for example, require use the website www.pdfa.org, as well state and federal authorities to allow as publications, seminars and confer- the public universal access to the dig- ences, to provide information about ital information they provide. Aside implementing PDF/UA in practice. 4 PDF/UA in a Nutshell Laws and regulations Important Laws and regulations International Section 11 of the German federal law BGG has required since 2002 that fed- ■ UN Convention on the Rights of People eral authorities’ online presences and with Disabilities: The UN Convention on services be universally accessible. Some the Rights of People with Disabilities German states also have state-level laws defines in concrete terms the general which place similar requirements on lo- human rights of people with disabilities. cal authorities. It has been in effect since 2008. ■ Regulation for the creation of univer- sally accessible IT in accordance with the United States of America Equal Treatment of Disabled Persons Act (Barrierefreie-Informationstechnik-Ver- ■ Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA): ordnung – BITV 2.0): BITV 2.0 specifies In 1990, the US Congress passed a fed- the minimum requirements for online eral law, ADA, which forbade all forms information and services provided by of discrimination based on disability. federal authorities. They are most- ly based on the recommendations of ■ Rehabilitation Act, Section 508: In WCAG 2.0. Some German states have 1998, the United States expanded the comparable state-level regulations re- Rehabilitation Act to include Section garding universally accessible IT ser- 508. Since then, the federal govern- vices. ment has been required to ensure that all its IT services are accessible for peo- ■ Regulation on equal rights for disabled ple with disabilities. persons (Behindertengleichstellungsver- ordnung, BehiV): Article 10 of the Swiss federal regulation BehiV requires fed- Europe eral authorities to make anything they provide online universally accessible Important Standards: ■ EU Mandate 376: With Mandate 376, so that people with disabilities can PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1:2012): ISO the European Commission tasked the make use of it. standard 14289-1 defines all standardisation organisations CEN, essential requirements for uni- CENELEC and ETSI with harmonising ■ Federal Guidelines for Designing versally-accessible PDF docu- European public procurement laws.