Stones in the rain
Tags: PhotographyCallanish-I
June 26, 2008Dipity
June 25, 2008“Are PDF’s accesible ?”
June 23, 2008Is a question I seem to be asked every couple of months at work, here’s a response I wrote to a colleague recently…
PDF’s fail the WCAG 1.0 guidelines in a two areas
Level 1. Single-A. 6.3
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html#tech-scripts
Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page
In its strictest sense can be taken to include plugins such as pdf readers.
…and…
Level 2. Double-A. 11.1
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html#tech-latest-w3c-specs
Use W3C technologies when they are available and appropriate for a task and use the latest versions when supported.
Again, in its strictest sense, you should use HTML or an equivalent for structured documents as they are available and appropriate. The latest versions supported would be XHTML 1.1 or HTML 4.01
Even if there is a case for using pdf’s (such as it being prohibitively costly to convert them all to HTML) they must be created as accessible “tagged” pdf’s - which are only accessible to some users of assistive technologies, as not all disabled people use the same screen reader or browser and not all screen readers can read accessible pdf’s - even using adobe pdf reader, which not everybody does!
The only safe solution IMO is to mark-up structured documents as valid, semantically clean, HTML.
Tags: WorkThe Mulberry Tree
Local Sheffield artists watercolours
http://www.themulberrytreeuk.com/
I like ‘em a lot!
Tags: Media
