You’ve said a number of times that very little testing was done, but you are still pointing to the accessibility support documentation for PDF, which is not the document that you initially thought that it was… (AWK)

I keep referring to the very little testing done because I believe that the document is pretending to be something it’s not. It is called “Accessibility support documentation for PDF”, but it isn’t really about the accessibility support of PDFs at all – it’s about a very limited range of testing completed, that was then obfuscated between the report itself and the Appendices.

…We have done more testing, and will share more of that data in the future, but for the WCAG 2.0 implementation report this is what we provided.. (AWK).

I would very much like to see further testing. Perhaps your testing has shown that there is much more accessibility support for PDF than that document indicates, but (to be a cynic), I would assume you would have added that data into the document if it supported your case that PDFs are accessible.

…It is a little ironic that you say “But I don’t want to get into an argument about the accessibility of PDFs because I simply haven’t tested them for accessibility.” — I’m not trying to argue either – I just want the correct information out there – but surely you can’t believe that you aren’t putting forth an argument when you post a series on your blog titled “A few problems with the concept of accessible PDFs”? (AWK)

Once again this purely comes back to the document and how I believe it is misleading. I believe the document (if one didn’t know the scope of testing, and didn’t have access to the Appendices) is misleading in that it apparently talks about the accessibility support for PDFs. If you can prove to me that PDFs are accessible then that’s great (and a lot of people will be happier), but this document is misleading in that it indicates that there PDFs are accessible, when little testing was done, and some of the tests failed. That’s my problem: the concept put out there by this document that PDFs are accessible, when this document can declare no such thing.

It is a little ironic that you say “But I don’t want to get into an argument about the accessibility of PDFs because I simply haven’.t tested them for accessibility.” — I’m not trying to argue either – I just want the correct information out there – but surely you can’t believe that you aren’t putting forth an argument when you post a series on your blog titled “A few problems with the concept of accessible PDFs”?

AWK

…You’re not answering my question…

I presume you refer to the question “how much is enough”? I think that product manufacturers like Adobe should be continually looking at accessibility.

In 1998, the very first time I ran a seminar on accessibility, I was asked about the accessibility of PDFs. I am always asked about the accessibility of PDFs. I would love to say that they are accessible, but I just don’t believe they are. I believe that X/HTML has many more accessibility features than PDF and that they are both easier to implement and more commonly implemented than PDF tagging. But I don’t want to get into an argument about the accessibility of PDFs because I simply haven’.t tested them for accessibility.

What I would like to see is a comprehensive review of PDFs, testing them against a variety of assistive technologies and with various people with different disabilities to ascertain exactly how accessible they are/n’t. But I haven’t seen this testing done, and I believe the “Accessibility Support Documentation for PDF” is misleading in indicating that this kind of comprehensive testing has been completed.

Gian

…So what is the next step? Websites already have millions of PDFs, so surely the best next-step *is* for screen reader manufacturers to catch up?…

Hi Alistair

Well I don’t think screen reader manufacturers are deliberately not trying to work with PDFs, but PDFs have been around for a long time now and the screen readers still don’t manage the PDFs that well. Doesn’t that suggest that perhaps the screen reader manufacturers can’t make a screen reader that reads a PDF properly? Doesn’t that suggest that it is up to Adobe to create PDFs that screen readers can interpret? I really don’t think screen reader manufacturers are looking for an excuse not to support PDFs.

And in terms of whether the PDF format is accessible or not – without thorough testing we cannot tell. And as I mentioned in my first post; very little testing was completed. A small range of assistive technologies were tested and on a very small number of operating systems and browsers. This document is certainly not enough to declare that PDF is accessible.

Oh and by the way, saying that web sites have millions of PDFs and therefore it’s all up to the screen reader manufacturers is a little like saying that web sites have millions of images without ALT attributes, so the screen reader manufacturers should come up with an algorithm to describe images.

Gian

You’re not answering my question. You seem to be viewing the lack of heading support in Window-Eyes as an indication of an absolute barrier for Window-Eyes users. I agree with Alistair’s comment that end users who want the features need to advocate for them with their user agent of choice, but in the meantime, the users do have access to the information even if they don’t hear that it is a heading. This is not as good, no question, but it is the same situation that users had with HTML not so long ago.

You wrote: I believe it is important to highlight those things that need to be improved so that people don’t blindly say “PDF is accessible”, when there are a few things that still need fixing.

Agreed – but you can replace PDF in your sentence above with any technology. There is no technology, including HTML, that you can say is fully accessible with no qualification.

You wrote: “I get many requests from people having difficulty tagging complex PDFs- not because they don’t know what to do, but because their version of Adobe Reader crashes. These people are trying to do their very best in accessibility and the product is letting them down.”

I assume that you mean Acrobat instead of Reader. If people are experiencing this they should send the info in to Adobe since this would be a bug thatwe’d want to address. I haven’t experienced Acrobat crashing while working on PDF document tags myself, so customer comments are appreciated.

You wrote: “For example the eGovernment Accessibility Toolkit (PDF, 3MB) was very difficult to tag in PDF”

That’s a 272 page document that was created in Microsoft Word and exported with tagging disabled. 272 pages of anything would be a challenge, including semantic HTML, but the author(s) didn’t do one of the main steps correctly, and that created a lot of unnecessary work.

AWK

So what is the next step? Websites already have millions of PDFs, so surely the best next-step *is* for screen reader manufacturers to catch up?

Adobe (and the ISO process for the PDF standards) have done what is in their power to do, the only thing that will make screen reader vendors update (from previous experience) will be pressure from their users.

Apart from the narrow case of NVDA and ARIA/HTML5, screen readers always trail mainstream usage, as they tend to wait for things to features.

If we go around saying that PDF is not accessible (*very* disputed), then the screen reader vendors have an excuse not to improve support. If we maintain that the format is accessible, it moves the responsibility to the vendor.

…Thanks for the follow-up post. I’m pleased to see how short your list of concerns is. I have a few comments…

Hi Andrew

Thanks for coming back and responding again. I suppose my answer to “how much is enough?” and “how much does it matter?” is that it matters a lot to people who can’t use PDF. But I am sure things will improve with time. I believe it is important to highlight those things that need to be improved so that people don’t blindly say “PDF is accessible”, when there are a few things that still need fixing.

With regards to my comment on the difficulty of tagging PDF – it is true I didn’t mention this in my post; it has been a personal observation. I get many requests from people having difficulty tagging complex PDFs- not because they don’t know what to do, but because their version of Adobe Reader crashes. These people are trying to do their very best in accessibility and the product is letting them down.

And you are quite right: knowledge about the accessibility of PDFs, is like knowledge of the accessibility of X/HTML; there will be many people who know little of either. Unlike HTML though, PDF has an auto-tagging function which tends to do 80% of the work, and I do commend Adobe for creating such a feature.

Cheers,
Gian

…I created a PDF from part of your blog post, I copied it Word and then converted it PDF, I didn’t have to tag it, tags were added in the conversion process. NVDA the free open source screen reader for windows had no problem identifying and navigating by the correctly tagged headings in the resulting PDF….

Hi Steve,
Certainly creating a PDF from text is very easy. It is when creating a PDF from a complex document (one with images and tables etc) that it is difficult. Some of my work comes from companies that make accessible PDFs and then contract the difficult ones to me. For example the eGovernment Accessibility Toolkit (PDF, 3MB) was very difficult to tag in PDF.
Cheers,
Gian