Transcript Slide 1

Achieving
Accessibility with PDF
Microsoft Word to Accessible PDF
Greg Pisocky
Accessibility Specialist
Adobe Systems
February 18, 2009
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
What is Accessibility?

Electronic information accessibility
involves two key issues:

How content designers, developers, and
authors produce content that functions
with assistive devices used by
individuals with disabilities.

How users with disabilities access
electronic information
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Product Features: Providing Accommodation for a Variety of Disabilities

Accommodation Achieved With or Without 3rd Party Assistive
Technology

Blindness (Text to Speech functionality: Read Out Loud and Screen Reader
Compatibility also support for Braille output – refreshable keyboards, Braille
embossers)

Low Vision (Text to Speech functionality, Support for Magnification and Large Type
Display: Reflow, High Contrast Viewing, Read Out Loud, Screen Magnifier
Compatibility)

Limited Mobility (Autoscroll, numerous keyboard equivalents, compatibility with
alternate input devices, Support for Voice Recognition - Dragon, ViaVoice)

Cognitive (Read Out Loud, Compatibility with TextHelp’s PDFAloud which highlights
content as it is being spoken)
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Adobe Acrobat 9 Accessibility Overview

All products in the Acrobat family,
Reader, Acrobat Standard, and
Acrobat Professional work with
conventional assistive technology
products such as the popular screen
readers JAWS and Window Eyes.

All of the Acrobat products also have
built in accessibility features such as
Read Out Loud speech synthesis,
the ability to control the contrast
between background and text, and
the ability to provide a large type
display using the Reflow feature.

Pro versions provide authors the
ability to validate and create
accessible PDF documents and
forms from a variety of original
sources including scanned paper
documents.
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Adobe Acrobat Pro Versions Accessibility Details

Compatible with Conventional
Assistive Technology (All versions)

Has Built in Accessibility
Accommodations (All Versions)

Read Out Loud

High Contrast

Reflow

Autoscroll

Accessibililty Setup Assistant

Facilitates Accessible Authoring
(Acrobat 9 Pro Windows)

OCR

Add Tags

Touch Up Read Order Tool

Accessibility Checker
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Microsoft Word to Accessible PDF – Best Practices
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
6

Design an Accessible Word
Document

Set Your Preferences

Convert using the Adobe PDFMaker

Check the Results in Adobe Acrobat
9
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Design an Accessible Word Document

Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
7
Design an Accessible Word
Document

Do NOT Use Character formatting for Headings, Use
Styles

Add Alternative Text to Graphics in the Word File

Do NOT Use Spaces, Tabs to create tables, use the
Table Editor
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Set Your Preferences

Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
8
Set Your Preferences

From the Microsoft Word Menu:
Adobe PDF > Change Conversion Settings

Make sure “Enable Accessibility and Reflow
with Tagged PDF” option is selected
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Convert with the Adobe PDF Maker

Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
9
Convert with Adobe PDFMaker

From the Microsoft Word Menu:
Adobe PDF > Convert to Adobe PDF

Select the icon
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Check the Results

Run the Accessibility Full Check

Menu:
Advanced > Accessibility > Full Check


Make recommended and
appropriate repairs –


Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
ALT + A + A + F
Read the Report, Follow the Hyperlinks
Repeat this process until “No
Problems Found”
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
A Caution Regarding Automated Checking
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

There is NO Accessibility Button

Accessibility Requires Human
Testing in addition to Automated
Checking

Checking Can Only Detect for the
Presence or Lack of Required Items

Cannot Check if an Item is Correct
or Appropriate

Accessibility is a New Item for the
Production Workflow – Like
Authoring, Layout, Proofreading, etc.

Note Also, Publishers Will Need to
Employ a Variety of Techniques and
Methods
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Loose Ends (Some Common Errors That Crop Up)

Check the Language Attribute in Acrobat

File > Properties (Ctrl D)

Choose the Advanced Tab, Select the
Appropriate Language

Use Tags Panel to Provide Table
Headers <TH> in First Table Row

In LiveCycle Designer, First Page
Subform Needs to Have a Language Set

Fix Tab Order Does Not Correspond with
Read Order Error
Display
the Pages Panel: View > Navigation
Panel > Pages
Select
a Page and then
Select All (Ctrl + A)
Select
Page Properties and Check “Use
Document Structure”
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Acrobat TouchUp Read Order Tool for Easy Repair
TouchUp Reading Order Tool in
Acrobat 9 Professional for PDF
Accessibility Repair


Review and correct reading order

Review and correct basic tagging
issues

Add Alternate Text to Figures

Add Short Descriptions to Form Fields

Tag simple tables quickly and easily
Benefits

Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Quick and easy to detect tagging errors

Easy to fix most common errors
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
For More Information

Adobe’s Accessibility Website:
Your Resource for
Acccessibility Information for Adobe Products

www.adobe.com/accessibility
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
14
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®
Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
15
ADOBE®
ACCESSIBILITY
®