- From: Bruce Bailey <bbailey@clark.net>
- Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 11:49:15 -0400
- To: "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
- CC: SJU RESNA Prototype List <RESNA@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Forgive the cross posting. It is nice when my worlds come together! Access to forms was a recent issue on the Resna list serv. I agree with Kelly about the PDF converters doing as much harm as good. Of course, another thread reveals that I feel that way with regard to PDF in general! At the vocational rehabilitation center where I work, paper forms have been a problem for years. This is true for folks with vision impairments but also motor and cognitive issues as well. In practice, getting the forms in PDF or even in the original WordPerfect (or Word) file format has not helped. Various clinicians have experiment with a variety of OCR form tool software, but none have been a real panacea. The problem with these (and with getting the form as a word processing document) is that they look okay in print, but are not designed for filling out on-screen. A typical example is that a line is created by the underscore character or underlined spaces. Typing on the "line" moves text all over the page! This is the simplest example, there are lots more problems with boxes, font size changes, and the like. Our approach has been to CAREFULLY re-create the form in the word processor so that the person using the screen reader (or other adaptive technology) can search for "INDENT" (or similar white space code) and then safely enter text without effecting the formatting of the form. There is still the possibility that the person will backspace one time too often (and start deleting code) and there are other hazards. Usually we can train around these issues. This is obviously a very labor intensive approach, and not a very generalizable solution to the problem. There are advertised products that are suppose to take paper forms and convert them into databases. We have not been able to make them work, especially with screen readers. Has anyone else had better success? There are some nice high-end adaptive technologies out now for dealing with paper, but they tend to be read-only mechnanisms. Has anyone had good sucess with the Kurtzweil Omni 1000 or Omni 3000 (www.kurzweiledu.com) when it comes to accessing forms? Robert Neff wrote: > This is a reply to Kelly: > > I agree. Not all files are seamlessly converted. You need to be aware > what you are converting. If it is a document with text, then it should be > ok. However if it is a form, it may not convert well. You should test > before you post! > > Does anyone know of PDF Form (where you can enter data)? Would like to > see how these convert. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Kelly Ford [SMTP:kford@teleport.com] > Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 1998 7:57 PM > To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org > Subject: RE: Re: Adobe And TRACE Launch Enhanced PDF Access Via Email > > I don't want to start a debate here but my personal opinion is that all > thse converters do as much harm as good. If you ask me pdf is a > problematic file format at best for people that are blind. I recently > tried to convert a batch of IRS documents and the results were disasterous. > Yet the person at the IRS knew all about these converters and pointed me > directly to them and seemed oh so very pleased that the documents would be > made accessible by this convert technology.
Received on Wednesday, 2 September 1998 11:46:11 UTC