Re: Accessing PDFs

I would like to offer my thoughts on the question of pdf and accessibility
from a local (canadian province) perspective, where we are considerably much
less advanced in terms of right to access than in the US.

Pdf has inundated web sites here, and particularly government web sites.
Many on-line documents are offered solely in this format and it is a big
problem for many users here (not everyone is on the cutting edge of
assistive technology).

Despite recent improvements, the problem is far from solved and from an
education & outreach perspective, I believe it has made things more
difficult for us here because content developpers operate on the assumption
that they don't need to think about accessibility at all or provide
alternate formats since that seems to have been taken care of (that is, if
they are even aware of these issues).  And with the new "tricks" that were
announced lately (images, media content, etc.), I imagine it will only make
things more complicated since we already have to deal with a huge resistance
from content developers.


Catherine Roy
c.roy@camo.qc.ca
www.differenceemploi.com

Received on Sunday, 27 October 2002 12:50:55 UTC