Re: suggested tools for office/pdf remediation

Hi all,

 

In case you are not aware, the free PAC tool for PDF accessibility testing has been updated and is now also testing for WCAG 2.1 conformance (contrasts and such). As with all automated tools, manual inspection is obviously still required. The updated version (PAC 2021) is available at https://pdfua.foundation/en/pdf-accessibility-checker-pac 

 

Venligst/Kind regards

 

Lars

----

Lars Ballieu Christensen 

Rådgiver/Adviser, Ph.D., M.Sc., Sensus ApS

Specialister i tilgængelighed/Accessibility Consultants 

Tel: +45 48 22 10 03 – Mobil: +45 40 32 68 23 - Skype: Ballieu

Mail: lbc@sensus.dk – Web: https://www.sensus.dk 

 

Vi arbejder for et tilgængeligt og rummeligt informationssamfund

Working for an accessible and inclusive information society

 

 

From: Jonathan Avila <jon.avila@levelaccess.com>
Date: Tuesday, 11 January 2022 at 16.32
To: "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: RE: suggested tools for office/pdf remediation
Resent from: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Resent date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 15:33:16 +0000

 

I use the Accessibility checking tools built into Microsoft Office in combination with manual testing and use Office features to address accessibility directly in Microsoft Office documents.  Microsoft has some good articles on addressing accessibility in Office documents (although they do not go far enough). https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/make-your-word-documents-accessible-to-people-with-disabilities-d9bf3683-87ac-47ea-b91a-78dcacb3c66d

 

Jonathan

 

From: Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk> 
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2022 8:29 AM
To: Wilcox, Lisa - REE-ERS, Washington, DC <lisa.wilcox@usda.gov>; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: RE: suggested tools for office/pdf remediation

 

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

 

We don’t use any tools for remediating or testing Word, PowerPoint and Excel files. I don’t even know if there are any tools that help if you want to publish in those file formats.

 

For PDFs, we do what we can in the source document and do almost everything else in Acrobat. Axes QuickFix is useful for a handful of things that Acrobat can’t do.

 

We use PAC3 and the Commonlook plug-in for Acrobat for testing. Both test for PDF/UA conformance (although they give different results!). The Commonlook plug-in says that it tests for WCAG 2.1 AA conformance, but it only tests a small subset of the WCAG success criteria. If a client wants WCAG conformance, we do pretty much all the testing manually.

 

Commonlook and a few other companies sell tools that help you create accessible PDFs from Word. However, they are extremely expensive and we have never been able to justify buying them. These tools often say that they will achieve WCAG conformance, but this is not true. They only enable you to pass the WCAG tests that an automated tool can do. Manual testing always reveals a lot of non-conformances that still need to be fixed.

 

The bottom line is that tools don’t help you much. Document remediation is a very highly skilled activity (when done properly). Acrobat doesn’t do much automatically – it just enables you to access all the tags and properties, but you need to know what to do. Unfortunately, much of the information that has been published is incomplete and/or incorrect, so you ought to pay for training from the handful of people who have specialised in this for a long time.

 

Steve Green

Managing Director

Test Partners Ltd

 

 

From: Wilcox, Lisa - REE-ERS, Washington, DC <lisa.wilcox@usda.gov> 
Sent: 14 September 2021 21:19
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: suggested tools for office/pdf remediation

 

I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions to the best tools to remediate pdfs, office documents and excel files?

We are looking to expand accessibility testing and looking into tools.

I appreciate the advice.

Kindest regards,

Lisa


Lisa G. Wilcox (she/her/hers) / Web Design Lead / FAC-COR Level II
Certified Scrum Professional - Scrum Master
Scrum Foundations Educator
lisa.wilcox@usda.gov / 202-999-9619 

USDA ERS 
Office: 202-694-5574 / Fax: 202-245-4781 
355 E. Street S.W. 
Washington DC 20024-3221
https://www...usda.gov//

 





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