Re: FYI: [Fwd: Adobe prepares accessible PDF reader]

Ian,
We should get Rick Brown on the reviewers list for the UA guidelines when 
we co to last call.  Do we still have the old list from last year?
Jon


At 04:48 PM 8/27/2000 -0400, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>I'm forwarding the following URI [1] sent by Robert Neff to the
>WCAG mailing list. This is an article in Federal Computer Week
>about Adobe's announcement. I've quoted it below.
>
>  - Ian
>
>[1] http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/0821/web-adobe-08-25-00.asp
>
>--
>Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
>Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
>Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783
>
>Adobe prepares accessible PDF reader
>
>BY William Matthews
>08/25/2000
>
>As they prepare to comply with new requirements to make
>Web sites readable by visually impaired users, federal
>Webmasters point to a major concern - PDF files.
>
>But Adobe Systems Inc., the company that invented
>Portable Document Format, says a new version of its
>Acrobat Reader will be available by spring. The new
>version will make it possible for screen readers to
>read many of the PDF files that are now unreadable,
>said Rick Brown, accessibility chief at Adobe.
>
>"The government uses PDF for scanning in old documents"
>from the pre-electronic era so they can be viewed on
>computer screens, Brown said. These are essentially
>pictures of old pages and usually cannot be deciphered
>by screen readers.
>
>Other PDF files contain text as well as images. Screen
>readers often can read the text, but not necessarily in
>the same way it was arranged for viewers who have good
>
>Adobe is designing its new reader to follow the logical
>structure of each story. "Logical structure can
>indicate precise reading order and improve navigation,
>particularly for longer, complex documents," Adobe says
>in a description of its future reader. The reader "will
>be able to follow a single article from beginning to
>end, much as a sighted person would flip through the
>newspaper pages to continue reading an article," Adobe
>says.
>
>The new reader will work best with new PDF files,
>especially those that have been designed with
>accessibility in mind, Brown said. But the reader will
>"attempt to make" old PDF files accessible to screen
>readers as well.
>
>Adobe also is developing "some automated authoring
>tools that will make it very easy to create a PDF file
>that?s accessible," Brown said.

Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL  61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu

WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
WWW: http://www.w3.org/wai/ua

Received on Monday, 28 August 2000 09:11:10 UTC