Re: Jakob Nielsen Column -- PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption

From: "George Kerscher" <kerscher@montana.com>
Subject: RE: Jakob Nielsen Column -- PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption


> There are multiple issues with PDF that have been stated over and over
> again. While I applaud the efforts to make PDF accessible, there are
> problems that are extremely difficult to overcome.

The conclusion you reach is the same conclusion I reached when digging
around at the time this article surfaced. To be fair, the source of the
accessibility limitations came from Adobe's own website - which is somewhat
a good thing they realise the limitations of their format.

My blog entry on this is
<http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/access/AccessibilityOfPdfs> and contains
links for both sides of the argument, most notably
<http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=1161>.

The inescapable conclusion (IMO) is that if the PDF is simple, then it is
possible to make it accessible. Complex layouts and complex tables in PDFs
aren't accessible.

Thanks for the additional info.

Mike

Received on Tuesday, 26 August 2003 00:45:42 UTC