Re: PDF techniques

Is there any way to recommend that folks reconsider the use of PDFs in the
W3C? I’d love it if the W3C followed the UK’s model:
https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2018/07/16/why-gov-uk-content-should-be-published-in-html-and-not-pdf/

So much web traffic is mobile, and however accessible PDF/UA are, they
really do not scale well for smaller devices.

And yes, ask most folks who use assistive technology about PDFs, and you
generally hear groans from users. They are just far too easy to produce,
and too hard to produce accessibly.

When the US Federal government can’t even make 1/3rd of their PDFs
accessible in 2023, maybe we need to rethink the use of this format.
https://www.justice.gov/crt/page/file/1569331/download

Another thing that we could recommend is that because PDFs do not reflow,
that agencies need to produce a large print version, if they are going to
claim that their PDF is accessible. Low vision users shouldn’t have to ask
for a large print version of a PDF. If an organization claims to produce
accessible PDFs, it should include a regular and large print version by
default. Both of which should be readable by assistive technology.

But really, HTML, MHTML, EPUB3, there are other options, and people
considering PDFs need to be informed that there are limitations in the
format. For accessibility and user experience, the W3C has a role to move
people toward formats which inherently are more accessible.

Heck, why aren’t folks just posting an OpenOffice (or Word) original
document, and a PDF, print friendly version? That would really require the
least change to workflow and probably provide the best over-all approach to
dealing with the future of PDFs.

I do think in 2023, we should be considering if PDFs are part of a modern
approach to accessible digital content. PDFs really should be seen as part
of an organization’s technical debt. Yes, authors love them. But they don’t
love them because it is easy to produce inclusive content in them.

Mike


Mike Gifford, Senior Strategist, CivicActions
Drupal Core Accessibility Maintainer
https://civicactions.com    |  https://accessibility.civicactions.com
http://twitter.com/mgifford |  http://linkedin.com/in/mgifford

On May 5, 2023 at 12:18:45 PM, Alastair Campbell (acampbell@nomensa.com)
wrote:

Hi everyone,



Frances has been doing the much-needed work of updating old techniques, but
there are some sticking points on the PDF techniques.



If anyone can help with these aspects we can update them, otherwise we’ll
just have to remove the out-dated bits:



   - There is a list of alternatives
   <https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/pdf_notes.html#pdf_notes_acc-sup_files_applications>
   to Acrobat Pro but it includes some things which don’t exist anymore. Can
   anyone provide an updated list?

   - There are many examples (in each technique) that use a version 2.x of
   OpenOffice. Can anyone update those to a more modern version? (Probably of
   libre office).


These are both things which are good to have, but in their current state
are not helpful.



If we no one can take those one, we can remove them.



Kind regards,



-Alastair



-- 



@alastc / www.nomensa.com