Re: PDF in WCAG 2

Joe Clark wrote:
>> What type of content within a PDF is there no HTML equivalent for?
> 
> 
> You're kidding, right?
> 
> You can't even do footnotes in HTML. (Oh, but you think you can hack 
> those together with <sup> and a few <a>? But then you've created 
> *endnotes*. What if you want both?)

oh no, i don't think i can hack them. what i'm more concerned about is:
does a footnote that, is changed to an endnote change in content and
meaning?

> If this question were actually 
> serious, I could give you a list a mile long of practices used in 
> typography that cannot be replicated in HTML.

please do. as long as we're talking about practices that involve content,
and not presentational stylings.

> And did you know that you 
> can actually embed multimedia, with captions and/or descriptions, *in* a 
> PDF now? Try *that* in HTML.

how's about object, for instance?

>> How so? Yes, it may lose its visual/presentational values, but the 
>> content should not lose anything, no?
> 
> Some members of the Working Group fail to understand that presentation 
> *is* content.

in which case shouldn't you attempt to provide that content in an 
alternative
way? longdesc in the case of images springs to mind.

> If you really believe the contrary, can we please just write out your 
> wedding invitations on Bristol board in pink crayon?

"sorry bob, i know you wanted to come to our wedding, but our invitations
were printed in exquisitely filigrane typography on the finest of 
papers...but as
you're blind, we thought you wouldn't appreciate the beauty of the 
invitation, so
we just left you out when compiling the guest list"

again...yes, great, the presentation *is* part of the content. does 
that, however,
mean that you should not strive - if all else fails - to provide an 
alternative?

> Except for all that text inside them.

which is useless to me if i can't access it in the first place...

>>  in which case the very first guideline, 1.1, would apply.
> 
> Why, exactly?

because if it's not text - and i still maintain that, regardless of how 
much text is
inside the pdf, if i can't access it, it may as well not be there - then 
an alternative
needs to be available.

P
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Received on Wednesday, 18 August 2004 18:49:26 UTC