RE: accessible PDFs?

There was an extremely long debate about this issue a while back.  You may
want to try to track down the archives from this list.  As to using a
plug-in I think that if you must or want to use one then you should use a
widely accepted one such as the Acrobat Reader.  The reader is free, easy to
install etc, etc.  I will caution you that formatting is sometimes changed
in during the conversion process.  Additionally, there are different types
of pdf (portable document format) documents.  There are some that store text
and images, some that store purely text and some that store every page as an
image.  The whole page as an image type is a problem to convert to an
accessible format.  The difference between these is a setting somewhere in
your preferences of Acrobat Exchange (or Capture if that's what you're
using).  I can't remember exactly where as I haven't created a pdf document
in months.

-Jamie Fox

-----Original Message-----
From:	w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Kristine M. Bradow
Sent:	Wednesday, December 23, 1998 12:59 PM
To:	W3C Interest Group
Cc:	Bob Erlandson
Subject:	accessible PDFs?

I need to put some documents up on the web that the people I work with
can download from the web. I was planning on just putting the documents
in *.pdf format and inserting a link to the Adobe Acrobat reader page,
but I thought that I'd ask and see how such a solution rates in terms of
accessibility--what, if any, accessibility problems would requiring a
plug-in like Acrobat create? If it would present a problem, can any of
you offer an alternative? Converting the gross amount of literature that
I need to put up into HTML creates a formatting nightmare that I'd
prefer to avoid if possible--especially since some of the documents are
not all just text.

Thanks and Happy Holidays,
Kristine Bradow
Enabling Technologies Laboratory
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI
http://ece.eng.wayne.edu/etl

Received on Wednesday, 23 December 1998 13:14:17 UTC