RE: Accessibility of Microsoft Word Documents

I see only a few advantages to using Word over HTML:
1. I can set "Track changes" and then update the document, and send it back
to the author and he can easily merge my changes with his, and I'm not
trying to verbalize where and what I'd like changed.  Is there a tool for
this in HTML? How do you handle cooperative updates in the HTML world?
Maybe I am ignorant here.
2. For many of us, Word is our primary word processor, and thus we like to
write with it.  It produces less than accessible HTML when I ask it for the
HTML.  I'll have to look into upcast to see if the HTML it produces can be
more accessible. Of course, it is not free software. 
3. Back to something most of the people who post to this list always
dismiss, but is very important to many, that the printed form of the output
is more controlled in the Word than in HTML.  PDF is even better at making
that work.

Regards,
Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Lynn Alford [mailto:lynn.alford@jcu.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2003 3:26 AM
To: 'w3c-wai-ig@w3.org'
Subject: Re: Accessibility of Microsoft Word Documents



Quoting Tina Marie Holmboe <tina@elfi.org>:

> 
> On Mon, Mar 17, 2003 at 03:40:38PM +1200, Graham Oliver wrote:

>   May I ask why you chose that particular format over one which is - or
can
>   be made to be - accessible, such as HTML ?
> 
>   I must admit that I have little experience with it, but I can't say I've
>   run across programs that make Microsoft Word accessible to the blind,
but
> I
>   am certain they exist free of cost[1].

Just as a note, I've found that a little utility called upcast (review at 
http://www.pibweb.com/software/upcast.html) can quite nicely transform a
well 
written Word document into XHTML or XML.  The better the structure of the 
document, the better XHTML you will get.  

Lynn

Received on Monday, 17 March 2003 09:09:22 UTC