Re: Guideline 11 Interpretation

Dear Alice (et al.),
I too hope we have more discussion on this.
In addition to WCAG P1 Checkpoint 11.1, PDFs -- without equivalents --
would, I think, be a violation of Checkpoint 11.4 (P1).  This has its
equivalent in Section 508 1194.22k (the requirement for text only pages as a
last resort).
If this interpretation is correct, and I have no evidence that it is, then,
no, Federal Agencies are NOT required to convert PDF files over to HTML.
They are, however, required to covert PDF files over to plain text...
Cheers,
Bruce


Message-Id: <v04011706b67fb2eab715@[10.0.1.4]>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 12:10:06 -0600
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
From: Alice Anderson <alice.anderson@doit.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: Guideline 11 Interpretation

I'm hoping there can be more discussion/clarification on the
interpretation of this guideline. The situation here is that
the biggest portion of a web site is the documentation.
We make documents available in printed
form, but also online as PDF files (and many of our users print them from
the web).  In addition, sponsoring departments and agencies have working
paper series (100's of them) posted on their web pages as PDF files.

According to accessibility checkpoint 11.1, we should be using HTML instead
of
PDF, but we are concerned not only about the amount of work required to
convert
them all, but that this will interfere with their primary role as printed
documents.

How are others both interpreting this, and what specifically are you
doing to assure accessibility when using PDF's. Thanks to all for
your additional comments.

- alice anderson / uw-madison

Received on Tuesday, 16 January 2001 14:43:16 UTC