- From: Kelly Ford <kford@teleport.com>
- Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 21:57:45 -0700
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
This is not meant as a complaint, rather a point of clarification. While it is indeed true that Adobe offers assorted methods for converting .pdf files into text, folks should not consider this a reliable method of access in all settings. I've used these various options since they were released to the public and the results are quite mixed. You can usually get the text of the file in question, but the actual layout and presentation is sometimes another story. I used to routinely convert this little 8-page version of the New York Times and something that simple had some odd quirks. The headline for the first story ended up being in the file after the end of the second story as a simple example. Many complicated documents such as catalogs, statistical tables and investment documents are almost useless. Yes I am happy there is this option but in my view it doesn't work with reliability enough to be counted on.
Received on Thursday, 20 August 1998 00:51:17 UTC