RE: accessible epub

/Quote: 1. Generated lot of empty paragraphs for spacing. /EndQuote

That’s a content-creator error, not the fault of either the source software, conversion utility, file format, or the reader device.

Learn to add white space digitally with the Pages software’s formatting tools instead of putting blank returns between paragraphs. 

/Quote: 2. . images and design elements that have an aesthetic purpose but no informational purpose would be announced. /EndQuote

See if Pages has a utility to add Alt Text or set graphics as artifacts/null/background.

/Quote: 4. when I used drop caps. /EndQuote

The SPAN tags around the “M” in your example are to designate the visual formatting of the “M” that’s different from the rest of the word, “ore.” The SPAN tag might be necessary for the reading device to render the content with a big drop cap, but it sure isn’t needed by those using screen readers or other text-to-speech devices.

Other than not ever using drop caps in accessible files, we’ll have to ask screen reader manufacturers to ignore SPAN tags in the middle words and voice the entire word correctly as “More” rather than “M” “ore.”

/Quote:  when you convert an epub do problems like this go away? /EndQuote

Yes, somewhat.

*       Use better software to create the source document. Word and Adobe InDesign are better choices with many accessibility tools and features. Pages is a free program from Apple. 

*       Get training in how to create a better, more compliant source document. Example, double blank hard returns should never be in your source document to begin with. And learn how to control the reading order and tags, how to add Alt text or designate artifacts.

*       Use a better EPUB conversion utility.

*       Learn how to edit the resulting HTML and CSS files to improve the accessibility and use on various different e-readers.

Summary:

1.       Free software like Pages generally don’t have controls or tools for accessibility. It takes millions of R & D dollars to create these tools. Remember, you get what you pay for.

2.       There are no magic wands or easy buttons. Learn to create the file correctly, export it to EPUB or PDF or HTML, and learn how to tweak the final file.

 

— — —

Bevi Chagnon  | Designer, Accessibility Technician |   <mailto:Chagnon@PubCom.com> Chagnon@PubCom.com 

— — —

PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing

consulting • training • development • design • sec. 508 services

Upcoming classes at  <http://www.pubcom.com/classes> www.PubCom.com/classes 

— — —

 <https://mailchi.mp/e694edcdfadd/class-discount-3266574> Latest blog-newsletter –  <https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2020_07-20/alt-text_part-1.shtml> Simple Guide to Writing Alt-Text 

 

From: bryan rasmussen <rasmussen.bryan@gmail.com> 
Sent: Saturday, July 9, 2022 3:39 AM
To: Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net>
Cc: kerscher@montana.com; WAI IG <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: Re: accessible epub

 

Well actually I might be wrong thinking about it, as I've never used any screenreader or anything with an epub, perhaps I am just migrating my experiences from how things work in browsers to how they work with epub - do most people use some sort of screenreader for reading epub or do they convert? 

 

Also perhaps inaccessible is too strong a word, perhaps the phrase should instead be probably accessibly annoying or something because , just looking through what was generated, My feeling was:

 

1. Generated lot of empty paragraphs for spacing, some people may get 'blank' announcements, want to avoid that. However I could probably fix that relatively easily if epub accepts aria-hidden, because I could just search replace > </ and put an aria-hidden in. 

 

2. images and design elements that have an aesthetic purpose but no informational purpose would be announced. There's not a lot of those so I guess I could fix those tonight. 

 

3. things that are for design reasons should either be dropped or put together in some way that makes sense, for example some parts are put together like a deck of cards, with numbers in a suit, like the 3 of spades etc. The markup that is generated for this is generally something like <span>3</span><span>unicode character for spade</span>

 

4.  when I used drop caps and looked at the markup it is <span>M</span><span>ore</span> which I assume might end up read as M  ore depending on how you were running the reader, maybe that is however because I am used to using it for testing and in real world usage you would be able to read without that problem? 

 

So - when you convert an epub do problems like this go away? 

 

Thanks,

Bryan Rasmussen

 

On Sat, Jul 9, 2022 at 1:32 AM Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net <mailto:klewellen@shellworld.net> > wrote:

May I ask what it is about the pages created epub that is not accessible?
Personally I use the epub convert option via robobraille.
www.robobraille.org <http://www.robobraille.org> 
converting epubs into my preferred format..
which is part of why I am asking what makes your file not accessible, for 
whom exactly?
Best,
karen



On Fri, 8 Jul 2022, kerscher@montana.com <mailto:kerscher@montana.com>  wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
>
> Any chance you could use the WordToEPUB tool? Daisy.org/wordtoepub
>
>
>
> It does a great job and the HTML is clean.
>
>
>
> Best
>
> George
>
>
>
>
>
> From: bryan rasmussen <rasmussen.bryan@gmail.com <mailto:rasmussen.bryan@gmail.com> >
> Sent: Friday, July 8, 2022 3:00 PM
> To: WAI IG <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> >
> Subject: accessible epub
>
>
>
> So, I have a book I was writing and I used Pages to format it. Then I generated the Epub naively expecting Pages would do a reasonable job of making the epub accessible. But it didn't, and I do not have the extra time to fix it (it's a side project, I really do not have the month that it would take to fix the awful XHTML that Pages generates, in fact whenever I look at the markup I think it would be easier to rewrite it all by hand, or even create my own framework)
>
>
>
> It would be easier for me to provide a screen reader only version of the document, that is to say unformatted since it is the formatting that mainly has created the problems. Does anyone have any suggestions for this - especially regarding platform discoverability - can it just be that I specify in metadata for one that it is an accessible version and the other one that it is not accessible?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bryan Rasmussen
>
>